Staff Pick

Welcome to Gametiks Terrie.    That's a beautiful deer. 

John Gibbs 

Thanks! I was pretty excited! My personal best. 

Terrie Kelly

In hunting there’s always something better out there somewhere  

Jason Loblein

Tylor Kelly Camps

Justin laite

Matt Laite

The 2018 season had me putting in more hours than any season ever before. I was working on a “Maine Big Game Grand Slam” I had already completed a successful bear, moose and turkey hunt. I had a doe permit, but my plan was to try to hold out for a mature buck. By November 7th, I had already seen 37 deer. Mostly does and lambs and a couple that I couldn’t identify for sure. On November 7th at 2:00 in the afternoon, I climbed into my stand. Before I even had my self situated, something caught my eye and I realized it was a deer. I scurried and got my gun up and discovered it was a decent buck. He was about 70 yards and quartered a little more than than I would have liked. Looking ahead at the direction he was headed, I didn’t think I  was going to get a better opportunity, so I pulled the trigger. Although I didn’t really see any reaction from the deer, I felt confident that I had made a good shot. My husband was away at camp for the week on his own deer hunting trip so I called my son Justin. I told him that I just shot a nice one. I waited in my stand for him to drive to where I was. Together we went to look for him. We found no blood and no hair. We did find some running tracks and he appeared to be stumbling a bit. We lost them after about 40 or 50 yards. We spent another 45 minutes or so searching, making loops back and forth. At that point we decided the best thing was to probably call for a tracking dog. At about 5:00 we met the tracker with her dog and another person that assists with her tracks. We spent 2 1/2 hours searching. Nothing. The tracker told me that as much as she hated to say it, she felt that I had completely missed. I was bummed, but I know how good she and her dog are and so I accepted it. I set the alarm for the next morning and headed back to my stand with a bag packed and a plan to stay for the entire day. I did sit for the whole day. 11 hours. I spent most of the day replaying, second guessing and beating myself up for what I did wrong the previous night. In the afternoon, I started to notice that I could hear crows. It crossed my mind and I wondered if there was any chance that it could be because of “my deer”?? I really doubted it and that there were probably no more crows than any other afternoon, but because of the deer it was just wishful thinking on my part. At just before 4:30, I heard a deer walking up directly behind me. I slowly turned and our eyes met. It was a small buck. I ever so slowly turned back and sat as small as I could with a tree in between us. After a minute or two, l heard him walking off. I slowly looked back and he was walking in the direction to my favor. I slowly stood up and turned and he looked at me again. We both froze. He then took two big leaps and stopped and looked back at me again. In that instant I decided to finish off my Grand Slam. (and I immediately regretted it) I called Justin again and told him that I shot at another one and this one was definitely dead. He came and helped me get him out and take care of things. That night when my husband called from camp to check in, I told him about how my day had gone. I mentioned to him about the crows. He encouraged me to take Justin the next morning and go back and check it out. So we did. We got back there and we couldn’t hear any crows. Just like I suspected... Wishful thinking... We decided since we were there and we had plenty of daylight, to just start searching again, where we had lost his tracks 2 nights before. As we were looking around, we heard a crow, and then another and another. We started walking quietly in their direction. About 350 to 400 yards in, we spotted a bald eagle in a tree. For me, that was my first glimmer of hope. We continued on towards the crows and in another 50 yards or so, we could see 3 crows sitting in 3 different trees. At that point we just started searching the ground. Justin looked ahead and there was a brook and a big ole buck laying with one antler buried in the ground. The coyotes had chewed the guts and one hind quarter off and the crows were working on the rest. I was using a 25-06 and my bullet never exited. It was lodged under the skin on the opposite side. It was hard to tell because of the coyote damage, but I believe that I shot him a little further back than I thought. It appears that he ran in a straight line from my stand in the direction I saw him go and collapsed in the brook. Why we lost him with the dog, I have no idea. I called the wardens and they had me cut his head off and meet them at my house with it. They couldn’t give him to me because I had already shot and tagged another deer. They had to write a permit to somebody else, which fortunately made it possible for that person to “gift” him to me. A very strange and twisted end to my Grand Slam... Officially, as far as the state is concerned, the little buck I tagged is my buck for the season.... But for me, technically, this big old 12 pointer is the one that made my Grand Slam complete! He made me work for it!!

700 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

700 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

85 pts · Saltwater fish — Terrie Kelly

500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

85 pts · Saltwater fish — Terrie Kelly

500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

612 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

640 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly