Missouri hunter’s makeshift ‘hillbilly castle’ puts him closer to whitetail Camelot.
After 12 years of mainly collecting venison for the freezer, Jared Foster decided in 2016 to hold out for a buck worthy of the wall.
It took the 34-year-old teacher and track coach eight weekends to do it.
The father of two toddlers passed up a lot of bucks in the 120s and 130s during Missouri’s bow season. He even let a 140-incher keep on trucking, mainly because trail cameras had revealed several nicer ones were roaming the family property in Barton County, an hour and a half south of his home near Kansas City.
He hunted seven of the eight weekends during the archery season.
Jared’s primary bow stand is a ladder-accessed homemade platform about 18 feet up a forked tree. It overlooks the intersection of prairie and unplanted crop fields, within range of a heavily used deer trail.
“There was no crop this year, however,” he said. “And no planting changed things completely.”
It didn’t take too many sits for Jared to realize the local whitetails had shifted their main travel route about 120 yards north of his setup.
In preparation for rifle season, Jared decided a move was in order. He enlisted the help of his father-in-law, and they used a tractor to move six large round hay bales — stacked two deep in a v shape — nearer to where he’d seen deer. He placed a bucket inside so that when he sat, only his head would show above the 5-foot-tall sides.
“My brother-in-law, Austin Fox, called it my hillbilly castle,” he laughed.
Soon after daybreak on opening Saturday, Nov. 12, Jared saw three does enter the field about 750 yards distant. They crossed until they were only 150 yards to his left.
Not long after the does crossed, he heard the sound of antlers clashing and saw a young 6-pointer sparring with a 4x4. He watched them fight from 300 yards through his binoculars.
“I was hoping they’d do the work for me,” he said. “Between them and the does, I didn’t need to do any calling or rattling.”
The ruckus did indeed lure a 150-class 10-pointer from the opposite tree line. Jared recognized it as one he’d seen among his trail cam images.
“It would’ve been my best buck to date,” he said.
A minute later, another buck – wider, taller, and with kickers – stepped out behind the first. Jared had never seen that one.
“The two big bucks walked slowly across the field, about 30 yards apart, and then they split,” Jared said. “The big one headed for the does, while the 150 began walking toward the two bucks fighting.
“I thought I’m just going to let it do its thing,” he continued.
He waited until the enormous deer was in line with an oak tree he’d ranged, and he grunted as soon as it stepped past it. When the buck hesitated at just under 150 yards, Jared squeezed his .270’s trigger.
“I shot and didn’t hit a thing,” he admitted. “I was shaking to pieces.”
Fortunately for the thoroughly discombobulated hunter, the buck froze in place, which allowed Jared to work the bolt and fire again. That time, the deer’s reaction indicated a hit.
“It did a donkey kick, and then sprinted for the trees,” he said. “I thought immediately it might have been a heart shot, but I was a little concerned when the deer jumped a fence so easily.”
Jared lost sight of the buck after it cleared the fence. Moments later. he was so relieved to see it reappear, he almost sent more lead flying. A wise choice to examine it through his binoculars revealed it wasn’t the same buck, squashing his urge to shoot again.
His brother-in-law was hunting about 1,000 yards away that morning, and he heard the shots. Jared told him to stay put and continue hunting until 9:00 — another couple of hours. He also held off tracking the deer because he didn’t want to push it into the almost impenetrable strip-mined property nearby.
Jared and his brother-in-law could find no blood at the point of impact. They also walked both sides of the fence, back and forth, and came up with nothing. Then they practically stumbled across the dead deer while continuing across the field.
After jumping the fence, the buck had collapsed after sprinting another 10 yards.
“We couldn’t believe it,” Jared said. “We were both gasping.”
Jared did a cursory point count before text-messaging Nick Marti, his former college roommate, best man and hunting mentor. He texted another buddy as well, who insisted on a photo of the 16-pointer.
He didn’t realize he’d missed counting four other points. The next message was: I was wrong. It’s a 20-pointer.
His father-in-law and Jared’s 3-year-old son arrived soon afterward in a UTV.
“The deer weighed 238, not the biggest deer I’ve ever loaded, but heavy,” he said. “Everyone I talked to said it was a 71/2- to 81/2-year-old.
“Jeff Gibson at Memories of the Hunt Taxidermy aged him at 31/2 or 41/2, which surprised us both,” he added.
This article was published in the December 2017 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.
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