Chief Osceola's Spear Has Been Planted

bigbendmarine

5 year old buck +
Made my first harvest of the season late Wednesday afternoon... few forum members might recall he was one of the deer that I questioned putting on the hit list in '17 but ended up letting walk around the house on the closing day of last year's season after I fillled a self-imposed 2 buck limit.

I named him "Chief Osceola" in '17 as when I first saw him he had a rather flattened spear-like G2 point not to mention brow tines that also looked somewhat blade-like. For reference sake here are a couple of photo captures from '17. One immediately below is one of the first camera captures I got of him.

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Took this picture of him walking around the house on closing day... he's the buck on the left... sadly, never saw the one on the right I named "MeLikey" again.

Osceola 17.jpg

Fast forward to this year and Chief Osceola was one of the very first bucks I spotted in velvet, as he was drawn to cherries dropping from a wild black cherry tree like a moth to a flame. However, once the cherries stopped dropping in late July with the exception of a random sighting or two he went almost entirely AWOL until late October.
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So on to the tale of the harvest...

While I've had two tempting jr. bucks walking out on me nearly every sit, Chief Osceola proved a more challenging foe. He actually walked out on me opening night but did so AFTER legal light as I scoped the area with a night monocular waiting for the coast to clear so I could leave my stand. Waited him out before getting down and felt good I hadn't spooked him.

About a week ago I saw him again, and this time in daylight, but he never gave me a shot I felt comfortable taking. I had three spikes half-heartedly chasing does between feeding and playful sparring matches when all of a sudden I saw his notably larger frame enter the very back edge of my plot. Only had time to ID him through glass before he exited the stage, hot on the scent trail of does the spikes had run off. Actually had my wife text me to tell me she spotted him chasing does in our front yard as light was giving out... and THEN HE AGAIN crossed the plot AFTER legal light, making me wait for him to clear the area before getting down from my stand.

Which brings me to Wednesday. Cold day as North Florida goes. Morning temps were actually around 30 and we had our first real hard frost of the season. I wasn't able to hunt the morning but with highs only briefly hitting the 50s, I made it a point to be out in the evening as temps quickly started falling into the 40s. Does staged early, with a nanny doe and two fawns hanging out in my primary plot and two other does hanging further back in a connecting narrow clover plot that butts up against ancient live oak trees. Picture is actually from earlier hunt but deer positions were almost identical with the live oaks just to the right of the photo edge / can see Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of one of them.

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The lack of spikes hanging around had me guardedly optimistic a mature buck might be around so I tried staying extra attentive and sure enough before waiting too long Chief came out of the woods near the does hanging around the distant live oaks... and instantly gave chase... AWAY from the plot.

THREE TIMES the does circled the live oaks with Chief on their heels and never slowing the least tiny bit for me to feel confident taking a shot... and with each circle I held my breath fearing that the group would run to the woods or to other plots than the one I was hunting... but after the 3rd circle, Chief paused and then diverted his attention to checking a scrape almost directly in front of my stand... and the deed was done. Begging forgiveness for the nerd level factor, Osceola's path looked something like this with brown star symbols representing orignal positions of does / fawns.

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Hunting alone makes it a challenge to get good harvest photos, but these were the best of the bunch / hopefully show a bit of the unique character of his rack.

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Finish by sharing that I shot him with my 6.5 creedmoor and never had a deer go down so quickly. He literally didn't take a single step / crumpled and instantly died in his tracks. Think I'm going to be taking a week or two break to turn my attention to more problematic matters... video below is from a SINGLE week of camera card pulls and captured right AFTER having just killed three sows out of the sounder. Make it to the 1:35 mark in the video and you'll appreciate the challenge at hand. Piglets can begin mating at about 6 months and sows can have 2 litters of 8 or so piglets twice a year.

 
Congrats!
 
Great store and deer!

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Long enough story as is, but did forget to mention one notable memory made... with temps hovering around 37 the night after the harvest I actually got to let it hang outside my home after field dressing it. RARE luxury, as in most past hunts I've had to race bucks to nearby walk-in coolers to keep them from spoiling in 50, 60 and even 70 degree temps.
 
Long enough story as is, but did forget to mention one notable memory made... with temps hovering around 37 the night after the harvest I actually got to let it hang outside my home after field dressing it. RARE luxury, as in most past hunts I've had to race bucks to nearby walk-in coolers to keep them from spoiling in 50, 60 and even 70 degree temps.
Lol, I've passed shots on many deer because it was a warm Sunday evening and I didn't want to spend all night cleaning a deer right before starting the work week.

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Congrats! Cool buck for sure. We also play the temps when deciding when to kill. Need a cooler someday.
 
Congrats on the great buck!!! Love the blades!
 
That's a great buck, nice work. Those pigs look great too - you could fill your freezer up in no time there.
 
Very nice story, and I really like those blades! Congratulations.
 
Thanks for sharing, Congradulations! Wise choice letting him walk last year...

Get some big glue traps
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For those tiny little piglets. :)
 
Let me know when you need me to be there, my Katera loaded with Easton Axis arrows tipped with Grim Reapers would love to help with the pig problem you have :-)
 
Congratulations bbm on a great buck and a great story, it’s always sweeter when you have history like that with them
I sure don’t envy you with the hog investigation, thankfully we don’t have them on my lease in GA, yet...
 
Congrats! Awesome buck and great history.
 
Awesome story and buck, congrats!!

Good luck with the piggies...
 
Great deer!

You need to start trapping those pigs. You'll never shoot enough to make a difference.
 
Great deer! You need to start trapping those pigs. You'll never shoot enough to make a difference.
Telemark, I trapped before having to resort to picking them off. Got about half a sounder last year in one of my traps and neighbor to my immediate North had success trapping as well. And then... smart boogers started avoiding them like the plague. None of the tricks that worked early on pulling them in (kool-aid mixed with corn, fermented corn, commercial attractants, etc) currently have the power to even get them to visit the outside of the trap pen. Yet they're in the general vicinity as I see tons of tracks within just 50 yards or so of the trap where they're rooting and searching for any acorns they can find the deer have missed. It's QUITE obvious they're dillegently keeping a safe distance from what they've learned is a mortal threat.

Blessing AND curse is that my property butts up against a 4,000 acre quail plantation. The curse is that with no homes / residents living on the plantation land it makes for ideal hog habitat. The blessing is that the plantation folks are hardcore about trying to keep them somewhat in check and by running dogs at night, using thermal cameras mounted on UTVs, etc, they put a bigger hurting on them than I'll ever be able to on my 112 acres. Between myself, neighbor to the north, and the plantation we've killed over 70 this past year but as you said it's really hard to stay ahead of their prolific breeding. Take special joy in getting the sows as not only is the meat better but more often than not when I take one I find I've actually killed 8 to 10 counting those in utero. Three sows I took this past month actually ended up being right at 20 counting fetal piglets that were just days from dropping.
 
Hail to the chief. A very nice buck. If you need help with the rest of the bucks some of us can pack up and be down there in a few days !
 
MUCH appreciate all the kind words from everyone. Fairly nice buck as Florida goes but at same time appreciate modest sized horns for those of y'all blessed to be in other part of the country with soils that produce B&C bucks.

Funny / frustrating thing about our area is that it seems like even our most mature bucks are destined to have 1 or 2 nice features when it comes to their racks but almost always fall short in another.

Crazy wide rack? Will likely have short tines.
Crazy tall G2s, G3s, and G4s? Will be missing brow tines.
Crazy tall brow tines? Shorter outer tines.
Crazy awesome right / left side? Other side will be notably smaller. Chief fell into this category. Rough scored him with gross of aprox 120. Would have been almost 130 had his left matched his right.

On a glass half-empty / glass half-full note, guessing that's a sign our soil-fertility is halfway decent? LOL.
Buck ever shows up that has ALL the columns checked off I don't know I'll be able to sleep for trying to target it. :emoji_fingers_crossed:
 
Loved the story and a great FL buck.
From everything I have read about wild pigs, I NEVER want them on my land. They are down in the very Southwest corner of Wisconsin and I have heard that farmers in that area will let you come onto their land for free to hunt these destructive critters.
 
Great deer and story congratulations
 
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