BBD

Nathan Payne killed this 160 class buck on an evening hunt last week. More pics available in the photo gallery. Check back often, as we are hearing more big ones are down and pictures are expected soon.

Casey puts a monster down

well as much fun as it is to hunt the peak rut in Nov. i'm gonna have to pass again this year!! Oct. 21 was my lucky day for 2008. after getting trail camera pics of a deer i named Forks for the last 2 years i finally laid eyes on him for the first time in real life. i was hunting in a draw in a stand i call the "doomsday" stand b/c every time i hunted it before something bad resulted. but i hunted it anyway... cold n cloudy day i had just finished a grunting and rattling sequence about 10 min prior when something caught my eye. it was antler in a thick spot 35 yards in front of me. he wanted to go down wind of me and into the thick mass of tangled trees to the southwest, but after enticing him with my grunt call over my shoulder, after a gruesome 10 min wait, i coaxed him to come into my shooting lane and in to 20 yards where he dropped his head to sniff the corn pile that was in front of my trial cam. knowing that i was in the wide open and he was nearly directly facing me my only chance do get drawn was while his head was down. i couldn't wait for a better shot, that was a good as it was gonna get then while he was at least standing still. Besides, it was the doomsday stand...i didn't want to give it another chance to remind me why i named it that! with his head down, and very sharply quartered to me i drew and settled my pin just off the spine and right behind the shoulder blades. ya it was a tough shot, but i think those of you who know me understand that confidence is not something that i lack. THWAP! i released and buried the shaft exactly where my pin was placed. as he reared and pivoted away from my i saw my arrow shaft had penetrated nearly to my wrap. i knew it should be good, but after checking for blood 30 min later with a lot of ground moisture, and more rain on the way, i found no blood. i soon had about 5 loyal friends at my side as we gave amply time before reentering the field to continue the search. on a cold and misty night the mob and i searched high and low to follow a few sparse drops of blood through the mid-torso high crp grass. one spot at a time we inched our way closer to my prize. Finally, when breaking inside of 20 yards of him i could see the heavenly glow of an orange lume-noc. after blinking once to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, i shouted "i got him" and ran up to claim my troghy. then i immediately thanked everyone for spending their time to help me. the shot destroyed atleast one lung but i didn't look to see if it pierced the other. the tracking job we found was so dificult due to the fact that the broad head drove its way through the meaty tissue between the ribs in an attemp to exit but lost the momentum to pass through the hide. there was no exit therefore the only blood we were following was that which was comming out the top of his back. the trail, although seeming like it took hours, ended within 150 yards of where it started. preliminary information suggest that this deer will gross score in the mid-high 150's...which is b/c when we found him we discovered that he had broken off 3 tines already this year!!!!!!!!! those tines would have elevated his gross score to the mid-low 160's where i had guessed he would be based on trail photos. but i did hope that i'd be wrong and that he be even bigger!! he had 18 scorable points, only 15 when we found him. hare are the pics, and good luck to all of you this year. GO GET'EM!

FIRST KILL

This picture was sent in by Chance Blatchford's mother. She said he is quite the hunter and she is very proud of him! Chance is 16 years old. This may be the first picture we have to post of a BBD in 2008, but this is NOT Chance's first kill. His mother said he had a comparable kill last year.

SOMETHING DOESN'T MATCH UP!

Sent in by Colby.

BRIAN'S SHOT

Sorry it took so long to get this one on, Brian!