Unconventional Wisdom
for Unconventional Bucks
By Tom Fassbinder
Hunting for a big mature trophy buck is a challenge that many hunters
attempt annually. With so many of today’s top hunters keying in exclusively
on big bucks, in some hard hunted areas the intense pressure has created
a new category of animal that I refer to as a super buck. These super bucks
have developed survival instincts that place them beyond the framework
of current conventional trophy hunting wisdom.
Before I go much further let me state that a mature whitetail is a master
at avoiding human contact and any mature whitetail is a formidable foe
in the game of predator and prey. Simply put, hunting any mature whitetail,
whether it is a buck or doe is incredibly hard. But I believe there is
a certain learned survival characteristic that exists in some bucks that
make them super bucks. These unconventional super bucks are almost unhuntable.
Remember, I said almost.
Super bucks are fully mature animals that have more than a few seasons
under their belts. They may not have the highest scoring headgear in
the woodlot but because of their age they often have a high degree of unique
antler “character”. A super bucks’ senses have evolved to a heightened
level and their survival skills reign supreme. A super buck will not tolerate
even the slightest bit of human activity within his core area. Earlier
in life these same animals seemed to co-exist with the farmer, rancher
or landowner and tolerated noisy equipment and the smell of diesel fuel
nearby, but no more. Super bucks will not tolerate any human contact whatsoever
and they spend their time in places where people simply do not and will
not go.
Super bucks have transformed into a state of being completely nocturnal.
Hunters rarely see them and sightings by landowners are even less frequent.
Most hunters I know, in preparation for the deer season, typically quiz
the landowner, mail carrier and nearby residents looking for clues as to
what type of deer they are seeing in the area. This is often a good starting
point when planning your season but if you are after a super buck you can
just consider those visits a PR trip, as chances are that no one has seen
the buck you are after.
How do you know he is there?
If no one has seen this obscure super buck how do you know he exists?
Good question. I have known of two such bucks in my 28 year hunting career
and in both cases I knew they were there because I had stumbled into both
of them way off the beaten trail, in obscure places that no hunter using
conventional hunting tactics would think to venture.
Both times I was fooled into not further investigating the area and
I now know it cost me the chance to kill two great bucks. My experience
with a giant gnarly 6 pointer will best illustrate how it happened.
The first time we saw each other we were both so shocked that we almost
came simultaneously unglued. I was on a very steep side hill that ran parallel
to a flowing river. The river was 30 to 40 yards across and approximately
2 to 8 feet deep.
Deer in the area crossed the river daily but typically at well established
game trails that lead to shallow spots. This allowed the deer to walk most
of the way across and swim only a few feet before reaching the opposite
bank.
I was intimately familiar with every nook and cranny in the woods I
was hunting that day. While slowly still hunting on a faint secluded “buck
trail” through the deep woods something told me to leave the trail and
venture down into a steep treacherous gully that lead to the river.
There was only one way into the gully and unless I wanted to go for
a swim, only one way out. To this day I don’t know why I snuck into that
gully but for some reason I did.
When I reached a point that was about a stones throw from the river
a wide racked buck stood up and looked directly at me.
His sagging cheeks and thick neck gave clues to his age but it was his
ultra w – i – d - e six-point rack that drew my attention.
Both antlers were twisted and awkward. Some wide bucks were known to inhabit
the general area but this fella was the grand pappy.
His inside spread was at least 26 inches, maybe wider. The absence of
brow tines combined with the impressive width of his rack made this ol’
boy an unforgettable picture. After a few brief seconds of me looking at
him and him looking at me he finally turned and ran straight down the gully,
jumped off a 10-foot high embankment hitting the river and causing a horrific
splash.
He then swam to the other side, scaled the steep 10-foot dirt embankment
like an experienced climber and then turned to take one last look at me
before he calmly vanished into a similar rocky gully directly across the
river from the one I was standing in.
Two years later, as I still-hunted through the same area with my bow,
the silence was broken as gunshots echoed from the other side of the river
followed immediately by the loud splash of a deer taking to the water.
At the sound of the shots I froze in a position about 50 yards from the
mouth of the gully and began to try to determine where the deer that was
swimming the river might appear when it reached the side I was on.
To my amazement, after a few minutes the w - i - d - e six
pointer suddenly appeared in the mouth of the gully. He was wet and muddy
but safely on my side of the river.
I watched with my binoculars as he passed by out of bow range. His six-point
rack was thick, gnarly, twisted and still without brow tines. Its width
was still solidly above the 24-inch range. His potbelly seemed to sag below
his knees. At the time I wrote both sightings of that deer off as incidental
contact. A buck of his age and wisdom would never choose such an un-cozy
place as a damp slippery rocky gully to live out his life.
I wanted to harvest the buck and began hunting him the day following
the first sighting. I never gave the gully another thought, thinking the
buck had been temporarily pushed in there by another hunter and instead
chose to hunt him in the surrounding thick brush and vine choked ridge
tops.
I now believe he only visited the places I was hunting well after dark
and he returned to the gully well before first light. I am 100% certain
that no other human being has ventured into that gully any time in the
past 50 years, why would they? Despite heavy hunting pressure in the immediate
area no one ever killed this buck and I believe he died of old age, at
home, in one of the steep, rocky gullies.
My encounter with the second buck was in a similar location and one
that any seasoned hunter with a modern day hunting magazine laying on his
or her toilet tank lid would write off as insignificant to the pursuit
of trophy bucks. The encounter was in ultra steep terrain with rock towers
protruding on either side of the small grassy area.
The buck’s rack had a fairly normal left side with a large but basic
8-point frame. The right side held plenty of mass with 3 or 4 long thick
brow tines emerging from the base. The long thick G-2 supported a beautiful
five-inch drop tine with a unique curvature.
This wasn’t a buck for the book but it was a buck for the primeval spirit
hidden deep within all of us. At the time I believed my first close encounter
sighting of that buck was a fluke. One year later I again thought our second
encounter in the same barren, billy goat steep area between the rock outcroppings
was also a fluke. I hunted for that buck in the surrounding oak ridges
and crop fields.
Neither I nor anyone else ever saw him again. However, since that time,
I have taken several of what I feel are this bucks direct descendants as
the unique antler characteristics passed from generation to generation.
Now, with a few more years of wisdom in my portfolio, as I look back
on the events surrounding my sightings of both of theses unconventional
super bucks I am certain that they lived the majority of their adult lives
in the obscure non-conventional locations where I had encountered them.
The similarities of both locations are eerie. They were both close to
water; both were primarily rocky areas among otherwise normal mid-west
hardwoods and river bluff country. The terrain was much steeper and more
treacherous than all of the surrounding area.
I believe both bucks had adapted to very non-traditional core areas
and they did not leave them during daylight hours. I believe both bucks
were mostly nocturnal throughout the entire year.
These super bucks had adapted to areas in the wild where hunters simply
did not bother to hunt.
Conventional wisdom would tend to indicate that with plenty of hiding
spots in the multa-flora rose choked draws in the surrounding area, no
deer would choose to live its life in the area these bucks inhabited. In
hindsight, just because my thinking was conventional it did not automatically
qualify as wisdom! I decided that what I needed was a little unconventional
wisdom to complement the conventional wisdom I already had.
Unconventional Wisdom
If I knew then what I know now I would not be writing about the one’s
that got away. In fact it is not what I knew that caused the problem, it
is more of what I did not know. The things I knew back then have yielded
many great trophy deer. However, it is what I did not know that cost me
chances at two more deer, and those two would have been extraordinarily
unique trophies.
Today, based on my experiences with the two bucks mentioned above, my
hunting style is now a little more unconventional. When I scout an area
I not only look for places that trophy bucks would likely live, I also
spend considerable time looking for places where farmers, landowners, loggers
and hunters don’t and won’t go! I actively search for relatively small
areas that have not been encroached upon by a human in years.
I look for steep secluded gullys or drainage areas filled with damp
rocky ground. I look for places that present a single entry and exit point
for human intrusion but might contain an additional avenue for an unconventional
buck to escape unharmed.
When scouting an area I now run through a mental checklist; would
a farmer ever venture through this area? Would the landowner ever have
a reason to go in there? Would Joe Hunter have any reason to enter the
area? Answer no to those three questions and you can bet that I am going
to give the area a closer look.
In Summary
When you begin forming the strategies for your next hunt do yourself
a favor and apply a little unconventional wisdom to the conventional big
buck wisdom that you already possess. I think the change could result in
an unconventional trophy and a memory that will last a lifetime.
For more go to: www.whitetailfanatic.com
TO: Tom
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