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Thanks to Mike Bauer, who shot this giant in Shelby Co. last week, for today’s guest blog:

It had been a long season with lots of up’s and down’s. Opening day of shotgun season I shot an 11-pointer only to have the people on the neighboring property tag my buck.  I was pretty upset to say the least.  I had been hunting him since bow season opened. 

I spent Thanksgiving with my family and decided late Thursday night that I was going to hunt on Friday.  My alarm went off and I kept hitting the snooze button. Got to the property a little late and rushed to get in my stand.  But I had activity 5 minutes later.

A doe came to within 5 yards of my stand and stomped the ground for ten minutes in the dark. I kept thinking, “Please don’t blow and spook everything around me.”  She finally left and 10 minutes went by. Shooting time.

I heard some crashing noise behind me to my right, and saw a doe coming up the hill. I looked behind and saw the buck trailing her.  I knew immediately I was going to shoot this buck, now I just had to stop shaking and get the job done. 

The doe came out 35 yards in front of me and I knew the buck was taking the same path. He stopped, and as I started to raise my gun, he looked dead at me. But he was more interested in the doe; as he turned and looked at her again, I was able to finish raising my gun and shoot.

He ran ten yards and stopped–he didn’t want to leave that doe—but then he took off running down the edge of the field and into the woods. I waited the longest 45 minutes of my life before I started looking for the buck. I glanced into the woods where he went in and saw him lying there. 

 

It wasn’t until then that I realized how big he was! We haven’t scored him yet, but I’m guessing he will be in the 150s as a main-frame 8 with an extra point.  His G-2s are over 13 inches long.-Thanks Mike B.