On Friday I finally got a clean shot at the buck we have called double split for the past few years. Shows what protein, years of patience and good luck can do. It appears that everyone at our place making sound decisions and letting the bucks age is working.
Prior to 2008, he was just a better than average deer for his age class.
In 2008, he was in the mid to upper 160’s. At the time, we decided to let him breed, but if he was seen after new years he was open to be taken. He was finally seen in January of 2009, but he had broken off his right beam just in front of his G2. It was not an option to shoot him with the missing beam and tines. A little good luck saved him that year.
Last year during the 2009 – 2010 season, he had regressed. We estimated him to be in the upper 150’s and decided he must be older than we had guessed and decided that he should go on someones wall before dying of natural causes. We were all disappointed we didn’t take him in his prime the year prior. Fortunately for him and us, he proved to be extremely elusive last year. He was never seen during the entire hunting season despite being a regular on the game cameras. Little did we know at the time, the draught had a tremendous effect on his antler development that year despite the free choice protein feed.
It was a great surprise to see him still around on the cameras this year prior to the season. He was obviously much bigger than ever before. We were concerned that with rut approaching that he had a chance of breaking tines or beams while fighting with other bucks.
I first saw him on the evening of Nov 5. Season had not opened yet, so I took some camera phone pictures and hunted Saturday and Sunday without seeing him.
The following weekend he showed up again around 230 yards. I had the sights on him, but he never presented a clean shot before it got too dark to distinguish him from the other bucks that were out that evening.
Finally, he showed up again on Friday Nov 19. Kristi spotted him at the edge of the brush, this time at only 170 yards. As he came towards the sendero, He stayed broadside and stopped while slightly quartering away. He was down on the spot and the first buck that I have ever killed that got bigger every time I looked at him on the ground. His gross B&C was 183 1/8, with a net of 176 7/8. His live weight was 223 pounds. He is the first buck that I know of in our family that will qualify to make the B&C record books. I happened to be the lucky one who got to pull the trigger, but double split was the result of the patience and hard work of Bad Bob, Rob, and everyone else in our immediate family. It’s nice to see that all of the sacrifices made to make “Centavo De Suerte Ranch” possible are paying off. We hope to see many more big bucks and memories for years to come.
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