Big Buck 411 Blog

By Any Other Name

By Any Other Name

By Mike Handley

Keegan Schmitt shot the wrong deer on Sept. 18.

The bowhunter from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, thought he was about to shoot Sweet Sixteen, a 16-point buck over which he’d been drooling for more than a year. He wound up sticking a 17-pointer, however.

Keegan couldn’t see the 17th point in the few trail camera photographs he’d collected of the unpredictable whitetail.

He retrieved three or four pre-season trail cam images in 2016, and then the deer disappeared until midway into the rut. It was photographed twice more before vanishing for good.

Keegan was late setting out his two cameras in 2017. He was elated to find one photo of the buck the first time he checked them in August, and he continued getting pictures from both units through opening weekend of bow season.

Many of the snapshots were taken while the sun was shining.

A wedding kept Keegan out of the woods on opening day. When he checked his camera on Sunday, the buck had passed through the Dodge County property at 1:30 a.m.

Keegan’s boss, who knew he was obsessed with a big deer, allowed him to leave work early on Monday. The 21-year-old plumber drove to the mown trailhead, parked, and walked to his Big Game climber already waiting in a tree. He was 18 feet aloft by 3:30.

“At 7:04, I decided to stand up for the remainder of my hunt. Fifteen seconds later, I saw the deer emerge at 20 yards,” he said. “Two or three minutes after that, it was at 10 yards, looking left and right with every step.”

That’s when the bow hummed.

Keegan’s fourth and largest buck was green-scored at 197-plus inches. His previous best in nine seasons was a 10-pointer that might have scored in the mid-130s.

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