HUNTER: Alex Johnson
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8_rK8chhiMmPMgpBIdNz_A
STATE: Michigan
SEASON: Archery
HUNTING PRODUCTS:
WHITETAIL PHOTOS:
WHITETAIL STORY:
It all started on July 29, I was checking my cameras on my own on our 100 acre family farm in Ionia County, Michigan. An averagely warm day, about a comfortable 70 degrees, I took my phone SD card adapter and set afoot into the woods. It was a tough year running the cameras so far, I wasn’t getting anything 3.5+, which is where we’ve set our management goals. I went all day running cameras, and couldn’t help but feel more and more discouraged as the day went on, not finding hardly any fawns, or any relevant bucks. I scrolled through the pictures at our most trusty spot, and I FINALLY found a single picture on a buck with a decent frame.
I thought in my head, ‘that’s a decent one. We’ll see what he turns into.’ Little did I know, that was the first picture of the buck that would develop me as a hunter more than any other buck before.
I’ve left the farm alone for a week, now it’s time to head back and check cams again. The ‘trusty spot’ I referred to is one of the most remote parts of the farm we call the ‘fence corner.’ This is a three-way crossing which our hardwoods butts up to the neighbors fence to their apple orchard. South of their orchard is a 30 yard strip of native grasses with a few trees scattered in there, where I now know their bed. South of that, the other neighbors have their field, making the native grass and fence line a great funnel into our hardwoods.
I pulled the cards with my hunting buddies Jackson and Jonny, and we went to Burger King to check the cards. Scrolling through the pictures, I begin to feel relieved when I see more fawns than usual, and then I see the first close up of the picture of the buck from a week ago.
I audibly said ‘Holy crap!’ and admiring his mass, tall slim rack, I loved it. He was going to be a great deer. ‘That’s the deer I’m going to kill this year’ is what I told Jackson and Jonny.
I’m also a big baseball guy. So when it came to naming this deer, I was thinking about baseball names I could pin to the deer. This buck looked like he was going to develop three points on his left G2, so I ran with that. A Hall of Fame inductee in 1949, Moredecai Brown was a beyond dominant pitcher, with three fingers on his throwing hand. And deer are brown. This buck was officially coined as ‘Mordecai’, and my number one target buck.
Weeks went on, and I began getting pictures of Mordecai at the fence corner camera every single day, but nowhere else. He would cross paths with my camera, and walk towards the camera, every day at 8 AM and 8 PM. I figured he was making a giant circle, and I couldn’t figure out his pattern.
I was quick to hop on the tractor and till up a clearing only 65 yards from this fence corner in order to plant a clover mix and give Mordecai a secure area to feed and begin to pattern.
Not once did I get him on camera anywhere but the fence corner.
I’m beginning to get frustrated with this guy… But I knew one thing was for certain. I would be bringing this one home in the back of my truck this year.
My next efforts were bringing out every single camera that wasn’t yet set up, and my hunting buddy Peyton and I would follow every single deer run from where we were getting pictures of Mordecai daily, in order to understand where he might be coming from and going in this weird circle-like pattern of his. But guess what?
Not a single picture.
Pictures were consistent through August. Once September hits, he vanishes off the face of the earth.
I continue to shoot my bow every day, research how to get this buck i’ve lost back onto my camera. I try mock scrapes, staying out of the area, supplemental liquid, everything. Not one picture.
CWD epidemic was a big thing in the next county over, but with this buck missing as well as my number 2 buck and a 2.5 year old with immense potential missing, i truly feared the worst. All of September goes by and I stayed out of the farm until my pre-opening day card check on September 28. Once again, no pictures of Mordecai. I then did the only thing I thought would work at this point.
I sat down with every picture I had of Mordecai and my other target bucks. Noting the date and times, I looked up the weather types for the times when he was passing through my camera, and noticed a very distinct pattern of him passing by with weather systems moving in. He was solely moving through my area with rising barometric pressure, while its dropping in temperature. His movements were primarily in the mornings.
I promptly opened up every single weather app or website I had access to to look for the next weather system like this, and i was floored to see that opening morning, october first, was going to be almost a 70 degree morning, with a rain coming in at about 10:30, so the pressure is rising with the rain system and temps dropping fast at that time.
I went to my parents and begged and begged for the morning off from school, saying I had the 100% pattern on my number 1 buck. Mom reluctantly called the school and told them I wouldn’t be there on October 1st.
The morning of the hunt, I pulled into the parking spot of the farm and already had passed through the parking spot. I knew it would be a good morning. The stakes were high this morning, and I left the truck extra early in an effort to not make a sound to my dark, almost half mile walk into my stand.
I finally got into the stand that I set up specifically to pick this deer off his main trail. With a wind from the west, it was pouring my scent to my right, into the hardwoods, and i was expecting him to be coming from my left.
As the first light creeps over the horizon, I’m quick to see deer. The only problem was that they were inside the fence of the orchard. I see one of my hitlist deer in the fence, and only 10 minutes after light and I’m already getting angry with how it’s playing out. More time goes by, and another unidentified bigger buck spooks from the left of me, likely from a coyote. I’m texting with my dad giving him a play by play of my hunt so far, talking through how i think he will take the trail at 30 yards, so that’s what i have my pin set at. Looking up at the fence row at only 7:30, I finally caught some movement.
I got binocs on him, and everything happened so fast after that. Mordecai was passing through my setup just as I had anticipated, but he was headed in the wrong direction. Earlier in the hunt, I ranged the corner of the fence for 40 yards, and that’s right where he was, still walking.
I grunt to try and stop him, and he didnt hear me. I grunted louder and he stopped and looked up, and I had to really thread the needle with this shot. I ranged it for 40 yards and let it fly. My heart instantly sank to my feet as it looked like I hit him back, near the liver, and I was worried it would be a non fatal shot.
I was quick to call my buddy Eric Petersen, with West Michigan Whitetail Tracking, to reserve the first track of the day, and we discussed my shot. He advises me to quietly sneak up to my arrow, send him a pic, and sneak out, for Eric was thinking he could have needed in the CRP right over the hill.
After gathering my buddies and my dad, we headed back out at 10:30, right before the rain. Eric had his tracking dog, Picaboo, and brought a new tracker and dog in training, Anthony and Fred from Find it Fred deer tracking.
Walking through the woods back to my spot of impact, some crows had tree’d an owl, and it seemed like a surreal environment, and the joy of being there with family and close friends made me thankful for the opportunity whether I recover this buck or not.
I’m pretty darn freaking out once we get to the impact point. I feel like i gutshot this deer. The dog gets on the trail and the blood right away looks amazing. We took literally 3 steps over the hillland Anthony says ‘I see him. He’s dead right over the hill’
I couldn’t believe it. Once we got up there, it was the best shot I’ve made on a whitetail. Perfect double lung, and my shot was farther than the buck even ran, and I freaked out for nothing.
Months have now passed and reflecting on the experience, I’ve learned so much about scouting and how to best pattern whitetails based on the weather.
