HUNTER: CrookedCreek_Bowhunting
STATE: Arkansas
SOCIAL LINK: https://www.instagram.com/crookedcreek_bowhunting/
YOUTUBE LINK: youtu.be/jrSw1zXBv3g
SEASON: Firearms
HUNTING PRODUCTS
WHITETAIL PHOTOS
WHITETAIL STORY
This buck first appeared in middle September of 2017. Here in Arkansas our season usually starts around the last weekend of September, so that gave us a few weeks of patterning this buck. He was a very regular visitor to our feeder and we had pictures of him almost every night and At least once a week in daylight! We judged this buck at around 4 ½ and he moved to the top of our hitlist in the early season! He eventually went on to get the nickname “The heavy 8”. We hunted this buck hard in the early season and pre rut but failed! We didn’t have any encounters with this buck, but he kept showing up at night! I then ended up shooting another 8pt we had been watching all season also but that’s another story. Then around the end of October we had a new buck that we had never seen before show up and he quickly moved to the top of the list. We then started chasing both of these bucks hard!
Then finally November 18th around 11 o’clock the heavy 8 snuck in to our food plot! It was our rifle season so I had the .243 out and ready, I put my crosshairs on him and started to squeeze then he took a few steps to the left so I moved over on him without looking out of the scope, but little did I know I moved my barrel right over the edge of our metal blind window! I squeezed the trigger and immediately seen him run of with a slight limp. I then realized I hit the window and shattered it but I didn’t think anything of it because of how he ran off! I got out and me and my dad looked for blood but couldn’t find any. We searched for a few hours with no sign of a hit. We gave up looking in hopes he would show back up. But he never did, we hunted for the other buck that had just shown up in October but we soon found out he had been shot by a neighbor the week after our encounter with the heavy 8. We kept hunting and checking trail cams but he never showed back up! We figured he had died and we just couldn’t find him.
I kept him in the back of my mind but wasn’t expecting to see him again. So early in September we only had a few velvet bucks showing up, then bam! Velvet sheds and he shows back up, now he’s a main frame 10 with a lot of extra mass. Him along with another buck “the big 8” were sitting at the top of our list. My dad was focusing on the big 8 and I was focused on the heavy 8. He was doing the same thing as last year, except no daylight pictures. He was completely nocturnal. With no pictures in daylight I was trying to find out where he was spending his days, but that would change on October 22nd. It was a frosty morning that quickly warmed up with the sun. We had seen a few does and then around 11 o’clock just like the year before he comes sneaking in to the same spot. I had a muzzleloader and my bow ready for action but decided to go with the CVA as he hung up around 35 yards. I put the muzzleloader up to my shoulder and squeezed off.
I watched the buck run right back where he came from and hit the ground right as he entered the woods. I was excited and celebrating then looked up and realized I blew the window out again but with the muzzleloader’s recoil, on the same buck, crazy isn’t it. I walked up to the heavy 8 and realized what had happened the year before. My bullet had entered his front leg right above the knee joint which had caused him to run with the limp but have no blood. I decided to mount this buck on a floor pedestal to show him off the best way possible, as you can see in the next picture.
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