My best home state buck in a while.

New Jersey is not known for big bucks, so I do most of my serious hunting in other states, but still hit the woods around home throughout the season. I usually take a few does for the table, as me and my family consume about 5 deer a year.

So, needless to say, I didn't have high expectations of taking a big buck, even though I knew a few were around. On October 17th, I went on my first hunt since returning from Ohio. I wanted to give a stand on an oak hill a try before work. It was close to home, and there are always rubs that appear early in the season. The wind was perfect, from the north, and the weather was pretty cool, in the low 40’s. As I was trying to affix my camera to the camera arm, it slipped from the tripod head, and plummetted to the ground, hitting the fork in the tree below me and breaking into several pieces. It was not a cheap camera, but a Canon GL 2 that I use for video taping hunts, and I wasn't happy...this day was starting off badly. I have two identical camera's, but two different tripods, and the mounting brackets are different. I had grabbed the camera that didn't match the tripod head on my camera arm, and that is why I struggled to get the camera mounted, eventually dropping it to the ground.

I got in and settled by 6:30am and waited to see what else happened. Just before 7:00am, I heard what I was sure was a deer walking in the leaves. I would hear one or two steps, then nothing for a minute. This went on for about five minutes, and I could tell it was close. At about 7:01am, I looked around the huge black oak tree right in front of me and saw a good buck in the open, 25 yards away. He had walked in right behind that tree. I could hear him, but didn’t realize he was that close. He was walking towards me, slowly, one or two steps at a time. He finally turned broadside at about 12 or 13 yards, and gave me a shot just before walking behind some laurels.

I hit him high, but I was high in the tree (the stand is about 30 feet up) and he was close. The buck ran off about 30 yards in an arc, stopped, and I thought I heard a crash. I waited a few minutes then got down to check the hit site. I knew the hit was high, and wasn’t sure I actually heard him crash. I thought it could just have been him breaking brush as he walked off. I checked my phone and it was 7:02am. I agonized over waiting to track, or getting down right away to evaluate the hit. I was convincing myself it wasn’t a great hit, and I might not find the deer. I packed everything up and got down at 7:19am, deciding to evaluate the hit and come back after work if it was bad.

I left my bow and backpack at the base of the tree, walked over to where he was standing and found nothing…no arrow, no hair, no blood, nothing. I started to worry that the hit was too high and going to be a tough tracking job, if I even killed him. I just wanted to find first blood, mark it, and come back after work. I tracked kicked up leaves for about 10 yards, and found a tiny, watery spot of blood. I got nervous at this point and wanted to see if I could find something a little better before leaving for work. I was getting more sure I wouldn’t find the deer. A few yards further, I found much better blood, sprayed on the ground. Another few steps, there was more, better blood. Confidence started to come back and I looked up to see if I could see blood any further than the 3 feet ahead I was looking, and saw the deer lying 20 yards away. He had only gone 30 to 35 yards at most, and what I heard was him crashing down.

He was a good ten-point, with long beams, good mass and a high rack. This is the best buck I've killed in NJ in about 10 years.