Wide buck down for the count

**Gobblengrunt** · November 13, 2024

Last week, I had the opportunity to hunt a special permit hunt which I partake in yearly. There are not a lot of deer in this area anymore due to multiple devastating hits of EHD but with good scouting, there is some deer to find. I found a decent amount of good buck sign on two particular fingers connecting islands in the swamp. Trail cams showed some huntable deer including this buck frequenting the area. Two days prior to the hunt my spot was on fire. Obviously a doe in heat was in the area as I had multiple bucks back and forth all day long. Afterwards, I hunted 3 full days only seeing a handful of deer and almost no rut activity. I was bummed as I felt I missed that magic rut days which happened the few days earlier. The last day of the hunt, I seen 9 does that morning which was equal to the amount of deer total the prior 3 days of hunting. I couldn’t believe all these does in a low population area and no bucks around. Later that morning, I see a large dark body emerge from thick brush at about 100 yards, he picks his head and I see the wide spread and knew exactly what buck it was and more importantly a buck I was going to take. He started walking a route which was way to thick with no shot opportunity. A layed some short excited grunts his way and he started to slowly come in but was headed downwind. I snort wheezed at him and he changed his tune immediately and started to come in hard. I took the first sure kill opportunity at about 60 yards, took his heart out, and he was down after a short run. Not a great “scoring” deer but one of my widest. He has a 24.5” inside spread! Thanks for looking