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In Pursuit of a Monster by Brandon Zinne
By:
FBO Field Staff - Wayne
,
Big Game Outdoors
, Permalink:
In Pursuit of a Monster by Brandon Zinne
12/17/2010 08:24 AM
In the summer of 2009, my hunting partner and I gained access to a new piece of property. This particular ranch looked to be amazing as far as deer hunting goes, a real bow hunters dream! I have been mostly a mule deer hunter in the past and this place appeared to be mule deer heaven: however we would soon find out by the owner of the property that there were some good whitetails around as well. It was looking like we would have the best of both worlds for bowhunting!
As the fall of 2009 neared, we were very excited about getting to hunt this prime piece of North Dakota real estate. One problem though is that we didn’t get much preseason scouting to see what was around for deer or start learning our way around the place. We kind of went in to the 2009 bow hunting season blind, but knew that we were going to have a lot of fun doing it!
As season started we decided to set a few tree stands and run a trail camera or two, in a couple of the areas the owner said that the whitetails frequented, but planned to mainly focus on spot and stalk mule deer hunting. As the season progressed we started to get some pictures of the whitetail that called this place home, including a distant, blurry, nighttime photo of what appeared to be a very respectable buck. After much scrutiny of the photo, we decided that we did indeed have a quite nice whitetail buck roaming around. We then started to spend a little more time sitting in the whitetail stands in the evenings and hunting mule deer during the morning hours. For me, spending most of my deer hunting career hunting mule deer, I decided that I wanted to pursue whitetail for a change, from that point on it seemed all I wanted to do was take a nice whitetail buck with my bow! We ended up getting a couple more pictures of the buck during the nighttime hours of the ‘09 season to confirm that he was definitely worth pursuing, but neither of us was ever able to get a glimpse of him on the hoof.
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In the spring of 2010 the gentleman that owns the property was fortunate enough to find a very nice shed antler from a whitetail buck. We confirmed that this was the left side from the buck we had seen on the trail camera photos. Needless to say, he was not just an average buck; he was a great buck and should be even better this year!
August 2010 had us very optimistic about the up-coming North Dakota bow season. We had a year under our belts on this ranch and had a better game plan as to how we were going to hunt the property and also knew the lay of the land quite well. We were out early in August and got our tree stands and blinds set, and also started running some trail cameras. Early on we started getting lots of pictures of does, fawns, and some very respectable bucks, but none of the big guy. Then, about 3 weeks later, he showed up on a trail camera and during the daylight hours no less!! We also got an unexpected surprise: photos of another great buck in the area. This buck was very close in size to the first one we had seen. We couldn’t believe it, two monster bucks, same area!
As the 2010 bow season was set to start, I was very pumped to go after either of these great whitetails, and my partner was as well. I had the first two weeks of season off of work and planned on spending much of it pursuing these great bucks. Both big bucks continued to show up on the trail cameras, but mostly at night. It seemed that they would show up about one day a week on camera during the daylight hours. As the wind dictated, I would sit in different stands waiting for either of the bucks to come by during shooting hours. After the first six days of season, I hadn’t seen either of the bucks and in the process had passed up some very nice whitetails. To say the least I was getting frustrating, but I knew it was early in the season and was certain I wanted to hold out for either of the big bucks and had planned to spend every day I could pursuing them.
On the evening of my seventh day of hunting, I decided to sit up on a ridge a fair distance away from our stands to do some glassing. With daylight fading, I finally laid eyes on the buck for the first time. He and smaller buck that I had passed on several times were working their way east out of the southern end of the wooded draw. I had an idea that they would probably cross through an area to the north of me, so I packed up the spotting scope and beat-feet back to the road, dumping the spotting scope at my pickup. I figured I could possibly ambush the buck as he moved through some small wooded and brushy pockets but I would have to get into position before dark. I was very excited to have finally seen him alive on the hoof! As I worked my way along, I spotted the two bucks and had to cease my movement for fear of spooking them. As darkness closed, I ended up 91 yards from him with no possibility of getting any closer without blowing him out of the country. I was very happy to finally have laid eyes on him, but disappointed that I couldn’t close the distance for a shot. That’s bowhunting!
After hunting for seven days I decided to head home to get a few things done. I returned to the ranch two days later for another five day hunt. When I got back to the ranch and checked a few cameras, to my surprise, the buck showed up the morning that I had left, and it was well after day break at one of the stands. I was kind of thinking that I may have missed my chance and was frustrated with myself for going home for two days.
As I sat in the tree stand over the course of the next 3 days I saw more of the same as before, lots of does, fawns, and smaller bucks, but neither of the two brutes that I was consumed with. On the fourth morning I did not hunt due to pouring rain. As mid day approached, the rain finally let up and the sky cleared. The wind was light and out of the perfect direction for the stand I wanted to sit. I eagerly crawled up in the stand in the middle of the afternoon and after about 3 hours of seeing nothing; I caught some movement on the hill to the west of me. I looked up and it was them! Both of the big bucks together about 250 yards away, headed in my direction. I began to get very nervous and excited. I did a tremendous amount of self re-assurance in order to get myself calmed down for a possible shot. I knew that if they did indeed come by me, that I wanted to get a shot off as soon as possible due to the fact that I would probably fall apart being in the presence of two great big whitetail bucks at close range. Either that or they would bust me. They don’t get big by being stupid!
As they worked their way down the hillside, I lost sight of them as they moved into the heavy cover of the wooded draw that I was hunting. A few minutes later they popped out about 50 yards away and continued working their way slowly towards me. My preferred shooting lane was right where they were headed and would give me a 21 yard shot. They moved in closer at what seemed to be a snails pace, and as they entered my shooting lane, the smaller of the two (more like a twin) bucks turned and looked directly away from me.The other buck, which was the one we had pictures and the shed antler from 2009, stopped broadside and put his head down. I figured it was now or never, so I leaned out to clear some branches of the tree, drew back, set the 20 yard pin, and with the heart pumping and adrenaline flowing, let the arrow fly! The arrow flew true and hit the sweet spot, passing completely through. The buck jumped and trotted about 15 yards and laid down in the tall grass, the other buck ran about 20 yards back towards where they came from and just stood there. At this point I was starting to shake quite a bit, the buck I shot laid in the tall grass, and the other just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, probably fifteen minutes. During this time I shook almost uncontrollably up in the tree and I can’t believe he didn’t see me. When the other buck finally walked away, the one that I shot labored to stand up and walked off about 40 yards, fell over, and struggled a bit, and that was the end. I sat in the tree for another twenty minutes or so and replayed what had just happened over and over in my head.
I climbed down from the tree and headed over to where the buck lay dead. The distance was about 50 yards and needless to say there was no ground shrinkage on this one! He was a beautiful 5X5 buck of nearly perfect symmetry! I was on cloud nine that I was able to take this buck; it was like I was living in a dream at this point and was expecting to wake-up at any moment.
In closing, I would like to say that I feel very fortunate to have been able to take this buck, and what a buck he is! After the mandatory 60 day drying period, he gross scored 173 2/8”, and netted 170 3/8” Pope and Young. The buck sported an inside spread of 16 3/8”, main beam lengths of 23 6/8” and 23 3/8”. His G-2’s were 12” and the brow tines measured 7”. A truly magnificent animal and large enough to qualify for Boone and Crockett. Just seeing a deer of this caliber in the wild is one thing, being able to actually hunt a buck like this is another, harvesting one is yet another and harvesting one with a bow and arrow is the ultimate dream come true!!
I would like recognize a few people that were a big part of this as well: the couple that owns the ranch, and my hunting partner! I won't mention your names; you know who you are, but thanks a million! Without you guys I would have never been able to take this great big whitetail buck!!!
Posted By:
FBO Field Staff - Wayne
,
Big Game Outdoors
Posted On: 12/17/2010 08:24 AM
Posted On: 12/17/2010 08:24 AM
894 Views, 1 Comments
Tags: hunting, deer, bow, monster, 0, ranch, zinne, pursuit, brandon, property
More Tags: Brandon Zinne,
Region: Global
Categories: Hunting > Deer Hunting
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Comments on this Article
Re:Brandon,
What an adventure! Congratulations on the buck and thanks for sharing your story with us. Good luck next year! Wayne
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Joined: 01/04/2002
Location: ND, USA