By Zach Fleer
Last July (2015), I was ecstatic about the upcoming deer season. I had been getting several pictures of a giant hit list buck on our family farm, and couldn’t wait for season to arrive. But Mother Nature had different plans.
The story starts back in 2012 when we started getting trail cam images of an impressive two year old, with a unique rack. I was bowhunting during the Missouri Youth Firearms season and had this buck stroll right under my tree stand at first light. About 30 minutes later, he had made his way over to where my nephew was hunting, and an errant shot hit him in the left rear leg. The buck made it through the season that year, alive and well.
From the very first encounters, we knew this buck was special.
In 2013, he showed up on camera a few times throughout the summer and fall. You could visibly see where his leg had been injured the previous year. We never saw him while hunting that year.
The summer of 2014, he lived almost exclusively on our farm, and I got thousands of pictures of him. He was a 160’s class 4×6 with some trash and a small drop. He went completely nocturnal starting in September until January. I didn’t have a single daylight photo of him during that entire time frame, though he showed up on trail camera at night.
The hit list buck ran the night shift exclusively throughout the 2014 season.
Beginning in April 2015, the buck’s bases looked impressive on trail camera, and by May we could tell he was going to be something really special. I didn’t check cameras again until early July, and was speechless to see what he had blown into by late June.
With tons of trail cam photos of this giant hit list buck, we were anxiously looking forward to the 2015 hunting season.
The giant appeared to be living on a small core area in the middle of our farm, so my hopes were very high we would get a crack at him during the 2015 archery season. I had added several new stands and food plots on the edges of his core area in preparation for season. In late August my dad and I were working on food plots when we discovered him for the last time.
It’s a numbing feeling to walk up and discover your monster hit list buck, dead before opening day.
He lay dead, right where we thought he had been bedding all summer. I was in disbelief. EHD had been the last thing on my mind, as there had been plenty of rain the majority of the summer.
Zach Fleer with the buck of a lifetime, found dead in his core area, having suffered from EHD.
As it turned out an outbreak in early August claimed the giant hit list buck, and a couple of other mature bucks off our farm.
I recently got the mount back from Wild Image Taxidermy, and memories of the pursuit of this giant deer flooded my mind again. It was a privilege to have pursued such an awesome deer. Many have said it was a complete waste that he died the way he did, but I don’t really see it that way. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to harvest this once-in-a-lifetime giant, but I didn’t have to kill him to appreciate what an amazing deer he was.
What about you? Have you experienced the agony of discovering one of your hit list bucks dead before opening day? It’s brutal.
You spend countless hours, months, and even years working toward one moment – one encounter – with one buck in particular. Then he’s gone.
Nature can be a beast. That’ simply part of the game we play. Fortunately there will be other bucks to chase, fresh tags to punch, and more memories to make – next season.
Here’s the author’s wife with another angle of the dead hit list buck.
