A mature buck(7 1/2 years) known as Daggers had been on our radar for four years. He had roamed our and neighbors farms for a long time, many times he had been captured on trail cameras but rarely sighted during hunting seasons. This past Thursday I was lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time, and caught Daggers in the fighting mood.

I had picked a stand that was huntable in an east wind, very few stands on our farm work well in east winds. I have always had good success rattling from October 25th thru about November 10th so I picked up one of my sets of sheds I use for rattling. I arrived at my stand and got set up around 4:15pm, as I had not spooked any deer getting to the stand I did a light rattling sequence, no clashing just light sparring. I use a large set of antlers(140"+) as I believe they have better sound and bucks can recognize the sound as a mature buck. Nothing came into the first sequence, at 5:20 I repeated the rattling and hung the antlers on my pack. I had just set down when I heard what I thought was a grunt then a second grunt behind me and to my right, as I looked that direction I could see a buck closing fast at about 60 yards. His ears were laid back and he was intent on finding who was causing the noise. At about 30 yards he stopped and surveyed the area, at this point I am still setting and can't get in a position for a shot. Finally he takes a step and he is behind a tree, I stand and get set for hopefully a shot as I have counted 10 points and a buck I can be happy with. As usually happens the deer doesn't do exactly as you would like, this guy decides he is going to move and get downwind of my position, again I need to move and turn 180 degrees. As I do this I look for the hole to get a shot as he is now at 20-25 yards.Finding my opportunity I come to full draw as he stops in the opening I had picked, the arrow is released and he blasts out of the area. My first thought is I never heard the arrow impact him, I gave him 20 minutes and went to where I had shot at him and began the search for my arrow, I knew I was in the right area as I could smell him. After twenty minutes of looking for the arrow I decided I had to switch to search for blood as it would soon be getting dark. It took less than 5 minutes to find blood and in ten more yards I had a Blood tril Ray Charles could have followed! In less than 100 yards there he was, I I walked up I knew that I had just taken Daggers, the four distinctive point (two on each side) below the brow tines were visible from twenty yards. As I was hunting alone and the size of the deer I had to call for help and luckily the county conservation officer was available to assist(he's my neighbor).

Now all I have to do is figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of the deer season, this is the earliest I have ever harvested a buck.