11/7 5pm So, going into 2021 I had the same goals for my hunting season I always have. That is, to maximize the time I get to spend in the field hunting, and to be able to hunt big deer. But, this year was a little different. I had those goals, but I also wanted Amy to get her first bow buck ever. She hasn’t been able to hunt archery for over 20 years. And, both Forest and Lily drew non-resident tags…Forest with archery, Lily with late muzzy. So, even though I still had my personal goals, the pressure was really off for me (that I put on myself) to harvest a great buck. Sure, all hunters want to kill a big deer, every year, but I’m almost beyond that. I am content.

Now, before I go further, I’m not trying to say that I don’t care if I kill a big deer. I try like hell to do it every year. But, this year my goals turned to trying to make sure Amy, Forest, and Lily all had good hunts too.

This brings in the story of Swoops. He’s a buck I chased all last year. After getting a ton of pictures of him all season long, and seeing him several times while glassing, and once during late muzzy, I really thought I had him narrowed down. I knew his main bedding. I knew his bed-to-feed patterns. But, I couldn’t put myself in a position to kill him. The one’s you think you can kill can get under your skin. 2021 brought with it another year of chasing Swoops. This year of course also brought with it another buck, a giant, Ranger that I could also hunt. Ranger is a huge scoring buck, but Swoops was under my skin. So, in my mind it was Swoops or Ranger. There were other great deer, but a part of me was simply going to limit myself to those two deer.

When he started showing up on cameras in 2021 it was confirmation he was back…and big. Amy and I saw him a bunch of times all season long, but always out of range. Again, I thought I had his bedding pegged, and this year his main feed pattern was a cut corn field almost 3/4 miles from his main bedding. Should be easy to pick off right? Well, not really. The cut corn was in the wide open making it near impossible to set up at his food source. And his bed to feed pattern was sporadic. Oh, he went to that corn field almost every day but never took the same path.

The morning of November 2nd I picked a new stand that would be the downwind of his bedding on the back side. We had a north wind that morning, and he would be coming from the north back from that corn. And…he did. Around 8 am him and another great buck came slowly through making their way back to their beds. I had him at full draw and within 30 yards twice but no shot. A rookie mistake!!! The shooting lanes weren’t big enough. No shot, but it confirmed he was in there. I had him I thought. But he was hurting bad. That morning he limped really bad. I was fearful something was wrong…hit by car…buck fight wound? Would he recover?

So…we’ve been having all these south winds. South winds in and of themselves don’t bother me the slightest. But when they don’t change it’s hard to mix things up. Going into tonight’s hunt, I had yet another south wind…but the winds are a-changing. The forecast showed some north and east winds mixed in. With only one or two more nights of south’s, I went all in tonight to a stand Forest and I hung this spring specifically for a south wind (and specifically for Swoops). With a south wind, it is exactly on the other side of Swoops bedding area that I saw him the morning of November 2nd. Down wind of bedding areas!!!

It was warm. Balmy even tonight. I think close to 70 when I went at just after 1pm. I snuck into that stand wearing only my thin base-layers. By 2 o-clock, I had already seen a handful of does in that bedding area and one made here way right past me. That stand is really open, but the deer didn’t see me. I was glad I brushed that stand in a few weeks ago.

Again, around 3 o-clock, more does were bustling about in the bedding, this time a big deer was behind and chasing them. Big rack! In just a few moments, they scramble around and almost get to my downwind side, but don’t. I know it’s a big deer, big buck, but it’s so thick I can’t make out who it is? My instincts say to make an aggressive grunt at him…but he’s so close to being downwind of my position I have to wait. And then, they all start moving off to the southeast….perfect….when he gets east of me I’m going to aggressively grunt to him. If he comes straight in he won’t get down wind.

With by binoculars in my left hand, (bow still hung up), and the grunt call in my right, I wait for him to get behind a lot of cover so that he can’t peg me if he looks…then he does and I aggressively grunt once…then twice. I see his head spin…I’ve got your attention you SOB. One more long aggressive grunt—here he comes.

I put the grunt call away, tuck my binos under my right arm pit while strapped around my neck, and slowly go for my bow. Release now knocked…here he comes. Straight at me. 50, now 40…35 yards…I draw slowly and straight back. He’ll turn, he has to. AND HE DOES. At 15 yards, he turns to the north and stops…perfect broadside…as the pin settles on his heart I shoot.

At 80 lbs draw weight, and 350 fps, I literally can’t see my arrow fly unless it’s a long shot. At 15 yards there’s literally no chance. But the arrow flies directly into his heart on the side facing me and breaks the off shoulder. I know this, because the arrows stops and doesn’t pass through as he bolts away. NAILED IT! I remember thinking. At 40 yards he crashes into a small tree and falls dead. Wooooo, Swoops finally made a mistake!

11/7 Update 8pm Swoops Lives

In all my years of hunting this has never happened to me before. Ever. I have never killed a buck that I thought was one I was after only to find out it wasn’t. And in this case…it was so obvious, but my mind was so fixated on that damn Swoops that he got the best of me. I talked with my son tonight and he asked if I was surprised that “Swoops” didn’t have the mass we both thought he had. And I was…I didn’t really care but I hadn’t reflected on that yet. Then, later, I was thinking about that morning of the 2nd, when I saw Swoops hurt really bad…I knew it was him because he had that tell tail swoop on his left main beam and that forked G2….what the hell—my buck doesn’t have a forked G2 but it sure has that swoop. So, I started checking camera pics from last year and this year….and there are three different bucks all with major main beam swoops on their left side. The buck I shot is NOT Swoops. No forked G2 and not nearly the mass of the actual Swoops. Confusing matters, the picture below of swoops in my description—is not even him—and not the buck I shot, but another buck with a major left main beam swoop. It’s another different buck with that same left main beam swoop but no forked G2. So which is the actual Swoops…well I looked at pics from last year and the actual Swoops has a forked G2 (last year he was just starting to grow it). Never have I ever (you ever play that game) screwed up so royally in judging a deer. To be honest, the buck I shot is a great, mature buck…but I’m a little pissed (and quite frankly embarrassed) that I thought it was Swoops and that it took me 5 hours after killing it to realize it? That deer is REALLY getting under my skin.

Bottom line, another deer that is similar but obviously not Swoops was in his bedding area tonight…my emotions and nerves got the best of me, and I killed his ass! He’s a mature big bodied buck but not who I thought he was. I don’t know what else to say?

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Getting into Swoop’s bedding area was made possible tonight because of heavy south winds masking my entrance into the stand that was close to him. After two years, he finally made a mistake when he figured my grunts as an intruder to his home turf. I’ll get better pics tomorrow!!! (Update 11/7 8pm…all true, except this isn’t Swoops, so he didn’t actually make a mistake. But I did get in quiet because of the heavy winds so that’s something.)

As promised, Forest and Amy got into camp early this morning so we got a few better pictures.