Two of the best bucks ever on 11/11/2025.
I was hunting with my younger brother, his son, and Connie the Wonder Mutt on our family farm. When we started up the mountain this morning, it was a balmy 17 degrees Fahrenheit with a couple of inches of snow on the ground. The plan was to still hunt in parallel with each of us on a separate finger and work our way up the mountain.
I told my nephew, “it’s impossible for you to go too slow.” Ten minutes later, he was 200 yards ahead of me. He scared up two does without ever knowing they were there. They ran right up to me and I could have killed either one, but it is not doe season and I don’t shoot does on the farm.
We went on up the mountain and I was about halfway up when my brother texted me that he was 3/4 up and wasn’t going any higher. I thought that explained why his son went so fast. He said he and his son would sit tight and wait for me to climb up and over. I said a prayer for his feet and kept climbing. Just about the time he was fed up and too cold to sit much longer, I got to him. Neither of them had seen anything.
We hiked across to the west side of the farm and dropped off my nephew on the first ridge, my brother on the next, and I went down the ridge on our western border. I’d sent them a text message to be sure to go really slowly and I would be sure to scare something as I went down and then worked back east.
After seeing a couple more does, I got to the bottom of the tree line. Connie suddenly stopped and pointed straight down the hill. In the old orchard below the wood line, I saw a deer standing under a crabapple tree, nibbling on a sapling. I checked him out and saw that he had two broken antlers. I sat down, thumbed the hammer back, found a gap in the brush, and dropped him on the spot with a neck shot at about 60 yards. Just after I saw him fall, another deer jumped out of the brush and ran off. Praying that it wasn’t the deer I had just shot, I reloaded the muzzleloader as fast as I could.
While I was reloading, Connie started whining quietly and looking sort of off to the left. I looked over and a little bobcat was padding along a fallen down tree and went into the brush where I had shot the deer. I like Connie and bobcats too much to let her off leash, so I just chuckled at the thought of this little bobcat snarling at me to defend “its kill.”
Then I heard a twang and looked over at the border fence. Another buck with one broken antler tine and one broken nub had just come over. Did he run to the sound of gunfire? We’ll never know.
I sat down in the snow and shot him too. He was about 70 yards away, downhill, and quartering to me. I aimed too low and broke his front leg and the bullet went into his chest, but missed everything important. He jumped at the shot and ran down the hill. The little bobcat also took off down the hill. I saw the deer circling back to my right and when he was about 80 yards away, I saw he was limping. I had a very clear shot and put one through a lung.
At this point, my nephew came hurrying over. He scared the dying deer up and it ran into some thick brush. I told him where to start looking for blood (easy to find in the snow) and then to sit tight once he found it. I went down and made certain that the first buck was dead, then I walked over to the blood trail. I set my nephew up a little off to my right and began following the trail. He went around some white thorn bushes and called out, “Uncle [Q], I see the deer!” I asked him, “is it dead or alive?” “Alive!” “Then shoot it!” Bang! The deer jumped up and ran into some even more hellish brush. We tracked it into a thicket and found it dead. If we had waited another few minutes, it might have bled out where it was, but I was glad the lad got a shot off. We’re counting that as his first buck!
Meat bucks. The best kind.
Edit - the Hornady 300-grain SST .50 caliber sabot (.452 bullet) is absolutely devastating on deer. Some of the gnarliest wounds I have seen in a while.
