2011 MN Rifle Buck

My 2011 quest for a shooter buck in MN came to an end on Veterans Day 11/11/11.  Over the last couple weeks I put in a lot of time bowhunting and then Rifle hunting to get this buck and it was a challenge to say the least.  Here is a little recap of how the last two weeks went.

This year has been a real challenge for many reasons but mainly the abundance of acorns and food is making hunting in the Midwest very tough for most.  When you have an abundance of food, deer  are not forced to travel far to eat and remain very dispersed.  Because of this deer can remain hidden in extremely thick cover and their core bedding areas.  With very few deer showing up on the food plots it was hard to gauge exactly what we had for mature bucks on our property without going into their bedroom, which I really try to avoid.

I entered this years deer season not knowing what we had for mature deer because I was not able to get a good sampling of trail cam pics on many of the bucks.  I was however able to identify 4 mature bucks that were using our property quite often and had my sights on one of those mature bucks.

The late October bow hunting came and went without me even seeing a mature buck. Add in the warm temps and very little rutting activity and it was tough to say the least.  When the Rifle opener rolled around we were blessed with 35 MPH winds for two days.  After the winds subsided it was advantage deer.  The deer were well aware the season was underway but due to the wind they did not move, and very few deer were killed.  Because of the conditions, I decided to focus my rifle season efforts midweek when there would be a chance a big buck would be on its feet due to the minimal hunting pressure.  On Thursday 11/10 things really got rocking and I saw 14 bucks that day, none of which were shooters.  I had a lot of confidence going into Friday 11/11/11 because of the movement on Thursday.

Friday morning started out with a small buck chasing a doe past my stand.  It was a good sign the deer were moving.  It was about 8 AM when a doe and two fawns came walking by and were standing near my stand.  These deer were not feeding so I knew they had been bumped by something.  Then at 150 yards a buck steps out in the clearing and sees the doe standing near my stand.  He immediately starts a full sprint for the doe and I had very little time to identify which buck it was.  Just before he got past my stand I stopped him and noticed the hook on the left main beam and took the shot.  It was a very tough call and the one thing I really hate about rifle hunting.  So, in the end I ended up with this 11 pointer that I had not seen since it was in velvet.  (Ironically it showed up on trail camera two days before I shot it but unfortunately I had not checked the camera or I would have had a better look at it.  That trail camera picture is below)  I knew it had really good mass but the inside spread is not what I had hoped.  But, it is dead now and isn't going to grow anymore and I am happy with it.  Unfortunately I formatted the SD card that had the good pictures on so all I am left with is my crappy cell phone pics, big mistake on my part!

My efforts now turn to SD for a deer/pheasant combo trip and then back to MN for Muzzleloader season.  My son Cole did not connect with a shooter buck so we are going to work hard to get him a nice mature deer with the muzzleloader.  I have a feeling late season muzzleloader should be excellent as there were very few mature bucks taken during the MN gun season this year because of the reasons mentioned above.