At the peak of the 2025 rut in central Alberta, Canada, Jeremy Bos lured a trophy buck into rifle range by using a time-tested trick. He rattled like battling rival boss bucks. Curiosity brought a 15-point whitetail hurrying to guard its turf, but not before Jeremy took some risks.
How Jeremy happened to be hunting this spot: The 51-year-old butcher from Red Deer sources beef — mainly Holstein dairy cows — to a dog food plant.
“I was visiting one of my dairy customers,” he says. “I was driving down his back road and thought, This is perfect whitetail property! For sure, bucks will chase does down the road or drink from the creek. With his permission, in October I set up a stand with help from my son, Ethan. The spot gave me a good view across the creek and up to the road.”
On Nov. 15, Jeremy climbed 17 feet up a poplar and settled in to look across a barley field. To his right was a stream with fresh beaver dams. To his left, 80 yards of open land separated him from more poplars.
When a trophy-sized buck first came into sight, he couldn’t have been more surprised.
“I had no idea the animal existed until five minutes before I shot,” he says. “After the fact, numerous hunters spoke up about seeing it. I posted a photo on Alberta Whitetail Addicts Facebook page, and one member told me he’d been sighting the deer all fall. Four miles away, another farmer said that, five days before I harvested the deer, it had been chasing does on their property — but they decided not to shoot so it could grow another year.”
Jeremy feels certain that the buck was big enough for him.
He had tried the stand on Nov. 1 at first light, but didn’t see anything. On Nov. 8, he tried again, around evening. A week later, Jeremy was still optimistic. He says, “The middle of November is prime rut time, so bucks stay on the move, day and night.”
He invited a novice friend, Wally, to come along. They headed out along a truck track from the road into the field. It was the only path where deer walked.
“I had one trail cam out,” he says. “It showed an image of a decent-looking, but not huge, buck. Wally went and sat 300 yards from me on the ground, half hidden by trees. I settled into the stand with rattling antlers. It was sunny, 55 degrees, and the snow from the week before had melted. I rattled for a couple of minutes then waited. It was 3 p.m.”
Jeremy passed the time in one of his favorite ways: watching nature. At 3:45, he grabbed his rattling antlers and simulated a buck fight. Then he sat back and waited.
“Close to 4:30, I said, this is going to be the last time I rattle, and I dropped my antlers. They smacked the ground. Five minutes later, I heard footsteps straight out in front of me. Sure enough, I saw this whitetail walking toward me. Then it turned and walked away. Oh no! I realized that buck was looking for the deer that were fighting.”
Should he risk climbing down and back to retrieve the antlers? He would be open to view, not to mention spread his scent. Jeremy crept down and up the ladder as silently as possible.
“I was willing to risk being seen, as the buck had gone into a thick patch of trees about 200 yards away. I smacked the antlers again for 30 seconds.”
While he waited, Jeremy texted Wally. “Saw a nice buck.”
“Where?” came the reply.
“On the south fence line going east.”
That was at 4:45. For the next five minutes, Jeremy had no idea where the buck had gone.
“At 4:50, it walked north out of the woods on my left, then stopped perfectly broadside to me at 250 yards. We suspect that it might have been looking at Wally.” Jeremy says, “While it was motionless, I lined up with its left shoulder and shot.”
The buck took its last 10 steps and went down. It expired 20 minutes before last light.
Jeremy’s message to Wally read almost like an S.O.S.“Big buck down, Buddy, big buck down.”
Buckmasters’ Master Scorer Ed Waite Jr. taped the Bos buck at 200 4/8 inches.