Last week, my buddy Scott and I spent the week hunting with Yancey Bishop in Shamrock, Texas which is located up in the Panhandle. It was my first out of state hunt and that, coupled with all the trail cam pictures Yancey had been sending us had my expectations high. It was quite the change in terrain from what I'm used to up here in the mountains of NE PA. We had an outstanding hunt to say the least, of the 12 times I was in the stand during our trip, I saw 20+ deer 5 times, also quite a change from NE PA. By Wednesday, the third day of our hunt, I had already had encounters with 4 "shooters" 2 of which were in bow range but didn't present me with a good shot. Wednesday morning I had a very nice 120ish 8 point at 27 yards quartered away but decided to pass on him as I was pretty sure he was only a 3 year old. With a change in weather Thursday afternoon and through Friday which saw the temps drop to around 15 with 20-30mph winds, I was beginning to think I'd be heading back to PA with a great experience and a great week shared with a great friend, but not the trophy buck I had been hoping would be the icing on the cake. Friday was the slowest day of the trip, but Yancey thought with the wind dying down overnight that our last hunt Saturday morning would be a good one; he was right. My morning started off a little slow as by 8am I had only seen one small 8pt, but my phone was blowing up with texts from Scott about the deer, and numerous big deer, were moving where he was. Shortly after 8 I saw what looked to be a nice, mature buck chase a doe into the bottom a couple hundred yards in front of my stand. I remember sitting there thinking "please come out of that bottom and into the bedding area" about 10 minutes later I saw the doe coming thru the brushy field adjacent to the bedding area I was hunting, shortly after I caught a visual of the buck, a definite shooter. The doe started into the bedding area about 50 yards away from me, when for some reason she cut into the small thicket in front of me, only about 30 yards out. The buck was following her every move and made a scrape on the edge of the bedding area before following her into the thicket. They hung out in there for about 10 minutes before the doe decided to cut through the clearing in front of me to get to the bedding area, I knew what would happen next, the big boy followed her, just as I expected and presented me with a chip shot at 18 yards. I drew back, settled my pin, and touched the trigger; the buck did the ol' mule kick and took off for the bedding area before heading out into the field the way he came and then disappeared with what sounded like a crash. I noticed the hit was a little back, thus leading myself to question whether or not I heard a crash and if I just somehow lost sight of him. I climbed down, checked out my arrow, and found good blood but a little junk as well. Playing it safe I backed and and drove to pick up my buddy Scott who was equally excited and was waiting on the road for me to get him. We started the track after about an hr and a half, we had gone about 60 yards and had virtually no blood on the ground. I turned back to Scott and said, "The last place I saw him was somewhere right out here, if he isn't here, we're backing out and coming back later." I turned around, took about 3 steps into the field and saw him piled up in the brush. What a whirlwind of emotions in such a short amount of time. I went from really starting to question everything I saw and heard just a few hours before with that sinking feeling in my stomach, to knowing in a few short seconds I'd have my hands on biggest buck yet. He is a beautiful 10pt, that Yancey guesses is a 6 year old. A true, old monarch in my opinion. Below are some pictures. Another cool thing about this hunt is I was actually able to get some decent video footage of him from about 70 to 50 yards before reaching for my bow. It was truly a hunt I'll never forget. And we'll be back there next year, for sure
Myself and Scott
