Rack Magazine

Uneventful season ends abruptly during holiday hunt.

A Thanksgiving morning hunt has long been a family tradition for Kevin Brooks, his father Jerry, Uncle Bobby and a good friend, Troy.

They often go after small game on Troy’s 125-acre farm in south-central Indiana, but they switched to deer in 2015 because they all still held buck tags. Donning orange, trading shot for slugs and heading to treestands was a no-brainer.

Troy’s farm consists of crop fields separated by several hardwood flats. The hunting has been good there for many years, so good that Kevin often takes novice hunters to the place.

“This one particular big oak flat is the favorite bedding area for a group of does, and I’ve always believed if you hunt where the does are, the bucks will come calling,” Kevin said.

“I had a good stand there, but I seldom hunted it, preferring a spot just down over the hill for myself. For some reason, last year I opted to hunt the top, right in that oak flat.

“I hadn’t pulled a trigger on anything, so I thought I would take a doe. The oak flat stand was as good a place as any, because people I placed there always saw mostly does with a few small bucks,” he continued.

“Troy and I had hunted the farm all through bow season, but neither of us had seen a quality buck in range, though Troy once saw this particular buck,” Kevin said.

When the Thanksgiving morning group split up at the truck, Kevin announced he was going up on the flat to take a doe for the freezer.

“I told my dad he should take the stand I usually hunted from, down at the foot of the hill. I had taken several very fine bucks from that location, and I wanted him to get a shot at something pretty nice.

“It was really cold that morning, probably only 8 or 9 degrees. I remember sitting there facing southwest. The sun was starting to rise over my left shoulder. It was very still and quiet at that time,” he said.

“I had a big redheaded woodpecker fly into a nearby tree, and I was watching it as it searched for bugs. I watched for several minutes before it took flight to look for better pickings.

“There was a good frost on that morning, and it was so quiet that I could hear really well. I thought I heard something and turned slightly to try and pick up on what had caused the noise. I spied something coming out of a thicket about 100 yards distant. It was a big buck!

“It was coming toward me, moving slowly but steadily. I figured it was searching for does up on this flat,” Kevin noted. “By the time it came to 65 or 70 yards, I knew it was a shooter. It wasn’t stopping to eat or anything, just coming on at a steady pace.

“I was hunting with a shotgun that had a rifled barrel, so I knew the buck was within my comfort zone.

“Flashback: When I was a kid, I missed a lot of deer during those first few years after I started hunting. I was always too anxious to get a shot, so I took the low percentage shots at moving deer, and all too often I missed.

“My dad tried and finally succeeded in teaching me to find an opening where I thought the deer would pass through, get my gun sighted on that opening, and wait.

“I did just that: found the spot and brought the scope to bear on that opening. I had only seconds to wait until the buck stepped into my scope, and I fired quickly when it did. The deer folded on the spot,” he said.

Kevin could see the downed buck and knew it was finished, so he did not rush to get down from his perch. When he did, he hurried over to the animal.

“I counted the points several times, coming up with a total of 19, one of which was very short and would be discounted when it was scored. But 18 points is pretty impressive!

“I was overwhelmed. It’s the biggest buck I’ve ever shot and probably the biggest I’ll ever see while hunting.

“I really wanted to call my dad. We had two-way radios so we could all stay in touch. I couldn’t call him without the others also hearing the conversation. I reminisced over another hunt about 10 years earlier when dad shot a big 14-pointer.

“He pulled my leg, telling me it was just a small 4-point, but needed help getting it out,” Kevin explained

“Well, when we got down there, we saw the little white lie he had told. I thought it was payback time.

“I got on the radio, and of course everyone would hear what I had to say. They had heard me shoot.

“They all asked what I had shot, and I confessed I had made an error and shot a small 4-pointer instead of a doe. I explained that I was going to do the right thing and use my buck tag,” he continued.

Well, of course, the guys started cracking on him about being a dummy, but Kevin let it ride. He told the guys that since it was still early, only 8:30, he would sit it out until the rest were ready to head back to the house.

“I went ahead and got the buck field-dressed, tagged and ready to drag out, and then sat down beside it to wait until the usual move-out time of 11:00,” he stated.

“It wasn’t long before the excitement got the better of me. I called my dad and told him I couldn’t stand it anymore and he needed to get on over here.

“Dad wanted to know what the problem was, and I had to confess that I had shot a monster of a buck that had 19 scorable points on its head, including an incredible extra beam on the right side!”

Jerry got down from his stand and hurried over to where his son sat with his incredible deer. They both stood and admired the animal for several minutes before trudging back to collect the side-by-side to haul it out of the woods.

“After loading it into the truck, we sat there waiting for my Uncle Bobby and Troy to come out of the woods. Several vehicles stopped to admire the buck. One truck stopped to look and he had two small boys with him. They wanted to have pictures taken with them and the buck, so they climbed in the back of my truck and snapped several.

“After the fact, I found that many of the locals also had an eye on this big boy. Even the local taxidermist was hoping for a chance to hang his tag on the buck.

“We still have check stations in Indiana, so later that day we drove to one to have the tag processed. They were having a Big Buck Contest, so I went ahead and entered it. It was ironic because just a week or 10 days earlier, a man brought in a really big buck that everyone figured would win, hands down.

“It didn’t,” he added. “I got a free shoulder mount out of that deal!”

This article was published in the April 2017 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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