Big Buck Update: Early season rutting activity paying off for Texas whitetail hunters
Tryson Brock of Kenefick got a couple of major surprises when he headed out to his deer stand on the afternoon of Nov. 8, and the first one was alarming.
Brock said he had been in his stand for a short time when he got a phone call from another member on the 1,200-acre Polk County deer lease. The message indicated that the club's president, B.F. Williams, had just fallen 20 feet from his box blind and was injured.
"He said red wasps swarmed him when he opened the door on the blind," Brock said. "He managed to throw his rifle into the box before he fell off the ladder. Somehow he landed on his feet when he hit the ground, and all he ended up with was a sprained ankle out of the deal. Boy, he was really lucky."
In hindsight, so was Brock. The unfortunate incident forced the hunter to abandon his initial stand and settle in at another one -- once Williams was tended to. The move ultimately brought Brock up close and personal with the biggest buck he'd ever seen.
"My [first] stand is way on the back side of the lease," Brock said. "If I had gone back there, I would have had to drive right past everyone else and risk spoiling their afternoon hunt. I didn't want to do that, so I just went to my wife's stand that was nearby."
Brock said daylight was beginning to fade when he detected movement along the edge of a brush line about 75 yards away. Moments later, he saw what appeared to be a decent buck milling around in a small opening.
"I was watching that deer when this [other] giant stepped out," Brock said. "I couldn't tell much about him other than he had one heck of a set of horns. Every time the first buck would get close, the big one would try to hook it with its antlers."
Brock said the big buck constantly moved in and out of the brush, making it difficult for him to get a good shot. The hunter estimates he watched the parade for 15 minutes before the deer finally stopped long enough for him to get steady and take a shot between a pair of sweet gum saplings.
"I don't really remember much after that," he said. "I watched that deer for so long I was shaking like a leaf before I was finally able to take the shot. None of us had any idea something like that was running around out there."
Brock's buck is a showstopper, indeed. Grown on open range, the 10-point typical frame grosses 168 Boone & Crockett points and nets 162 7/8. It should rank among the top scoring typicals reported in the Pineywoods this season.
A deer named Kawasaki
Luke Packard knows all about those big buck jitters. The 29-year-old pilot from Timpson collected a whopper of a whitetail on Nov. 9 while hunting on 400 acres of open range in Shelby County. He still gets antsy thinking about it.
Packard said the 15-pointer grosses 176 2/8 as a nontypical and 168 2/8 as a typical. It is the current leader in the Wulf Outdoor Sports Pineywoods and Statewide big buck contests, which means Packard is in line to win two four-wheelers if the deer holds on to the No. 1 spot.
"Before I killed the buck, my girlfriend was calling him Goliath, but now my buddies are calling him Kawasaki," joked Packard.
The story behind Packard's buck is a prize in itself, for it illustrates the extreme dedication and hard work some deer hunters are willing to put into their game.
The saga dates back to the fall of 2008, when images of an exceptional buck began showing up on trail cameras Packard had strategically placed around the property. Not surprisingly, most of those photos were taken under the cover of darkness.
"We've had a cat-and-mouse game going on ever since," Packard said. "I hunted him hard just about every day last year for 8-10 hours, and I never saw him. I knew he was still there, though, because I kept getting pictures even after the rut was over."
The game continued last month when Packard began finding active ground scrapes in the same areas he found them last year. Soon after, his trail cam photos began kicking out images of a buck with an all-too-familiar face but a somewhat different rack from the previous season.
"He was a slick 12-pointer last year, but it was obvious he put on some trash this year. When I shot him, I discovered points that I had no idea were there. It was pretty shocking."
Packard said he was reluctant to spend much time hunting the deer with his bow in October for fear of being detected and pressuring him out of the area.
"I did hunt with a bow on the Friday before the opening of gun season, but that's it," Packard said. "I figured if he came through there, he'd be running a doe, anyway. I hated to risk it."
Packard's intuitions about the magical powers of the rut were on the money. He spent opening weekend watching the heavily utilized travel corridor from a distance of 125 yards, but the buck never showed.
The hunter returned to the spot before daylight on Monday. About 7:50 a.m., a doe stepped out of the woods and big buck charged out on its heels, offering the shot Packard had been waiting nearly two years to take.
"He always managed to stay one step ahead of me until he got behind that girl," Packard said. "That's where he messed up."
Other ET Whoppers and Beyond
Several more great bucks have been taken across the East Texas region in recent weeks. Among the most noteworthy is a Houston County brute shot on open range by Christy Wilkinson. Her buck grosses 164 2/8 points, according to the Texas Big Game Awards Program Web site.
What makes the deer so amazing is it has just eight points. "It's a monster," said TBGA's David Brimager.
In Polk County, Leggett's Sammy Latner collected an outstanding 13-pointer that grosses 163 7/8 as a nontypical. Latner, a Texas Department of Public Safety state trooper, shot the open range buck at 25 yards with a crossbow.
A quick review of the TBGA Web site (www.texasbiggameawards.com) turned up a number of other whopper bucks, a couple with East Texas ties:
* Walker County, David Haltom, gross 162 4/8.
* Burleson County, Scott Greenwood, 238 5/8.
Lufkin's Buddy Temple is the current leader in the TBGA high fence category with a 219 2/8-inch nontypical taken in Duval County in deep South Texas. Temple's ranch manager, Robert Sanders, also collected 192 6/8-inch, 13-pointer with his bow.
Tim Kennedy of Georgetown turned in the top scoring TBGA low fence buck so far this season. The Maverick County nontypical grosses 201 2/8. The Kennedy buck also leads the low fence division of the Los Cazadores Big Buck contest based in Pearsall.
Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.
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