A buck that I called T9 (Tall 9) crossed paths with me for one final time this Saturday. I have watched this buck for at least two years. By the teeth wear my taxidermist believes him to be 4 1/2. I have pictures of him last year as a high racked 8 and I actually let him walk one day last year due to a questionable shot angle. This year he grew longer G3's, longer beams, mass, and a 9th point. I was getting pictures of him pretty regularly, but all at night or right at the end of shooting time.

Sunday, November 12th, he came in 5 minutes into legal time at 25 yards, but it was too dark that morning to get a clean shot. So I videoed him and had to painfully let him walk away. The next evening, he came back out and for 90 minutes I watched him dog a doe, finally breeding her. 65 yards was as close as he would get that evening. I hunted this deer every day except for Thanksgiving after that encounter. I spent 24 out of 28 days in the stand hunting him or one of two other bucks (both giants), as I had made my that I was not settling for any other deer this year. I passed up many real good bucks this year that I want to see make it another year, as my mind was made up.

This past Saturday morning it all came together. I had just watched 4 does mill around and leave not 30 yards from me. Once they had left, I was texting a buddy, joking about getting an itchy trigger finger, when I looked to my left and there stood T9, 40 yards from me. He sniffed around and then came across in front of me. At 25 yards I let the 450 Bushmaster eat. A 15 yard snow plow run and it was over. All of the 100+ hours of stand time over four weeks and it came down to a 30 second encounter. Elation for the reward and sadness that the cat and mouse game was over ... all in one moment.

This has been the most enjoyable year of hunting that I can ever remember and this buck was just the icing on the cake.

Great story! Awesome job!

Nice neck too! Great deer.

Great buck and a real nice field pic!

Cool deer

Congrats

Awesome, congrats Derek!

Congrats DEC on a awesome buck. Way to stay at it.

Good one..... biggest to date?

Your pics are always a good example for other to follow!

That deer is gonna make one gorgeous mount. The picture makes it look like he still has that sleek summer coat.

No, I've killed larger. This one was right at 140" when I put a tape to him.

Thanks for the photo complement.

Beautiful deer and photo! Congratulations!

Sa-weeeet!!

Gotta love that black opps rifle too. Calibur? How do you like it?

Good job D.... smile says it all

450 Bushmaster. I bought the upper four years ago and put it on a lower that I had built for a precision AR rifle a few years earlier. I love the AR platform from an ergonomics standpoint and how it can be tailored to most any application. While I will always be a bow hunter first, if I am going to gun hunt then my AR is the platform that I enjoy the most. The 450BM is a joy to shoot. It is pushing basically a 250 gr 45 cal bullet (similar to a Thompson Shockwave slug) at 2200 fps. It is flat shooting and very accurate. At the roughly 25 yards that I shot this buck it hit him like a freight train with about 2450 ft.lb. of energy. This is the third deer that I have shot with the gun and I let a buddy shoot one a few years ago as well. None of these deer went more than 20 yards.

The best part though is that if a picture of a dead deer doesn't pizz off the snowflakes enough, then just throw an evil black rifle in the photo and they go out of their minds.

I found this old 2016 trail camera picture to be interesting.

That's a beefy deer! Congrats on harvesting an awesome animal.

Nice Buck Derek... Congrats !