Staff Pick

John Gibbs 

Tylor Kelly Camps

Jason Loblein

I think 2004 was my most memorable deer hunt, so far. On Monday of that week, my husband John shot a nice 8 pointer, but not quite nice enough to please him 😉 The rut was on and he was devastated that he was tagged out. On Tuesday morning, he literally put his feet on me and pushed me out of bed! If he couldn’t hunt, he was going to hunt through me! He told me he wanted me to take the electronic call and every 15 to 20 minutes make a couple of calls. He said to change it up between the tending grunt and the estrous doe call. So out the door I went and down across our back field to my blind that my dad built for me. I remember my last words to him... I said “I’ll go, but I can tell you one thing... if I get a deer, there will be no pictures taken.” I had no make up on and was bulked up like the Incredible Hulk!!  I did exactly what he said. It had been about an hour and I had already made 3 series of calls. I picked the call up again and was waiting for the road noise to quiet down so that I could make another set of calls... As I was listening and waiting for it to get quiet enough, I heard what I thought was the family dog coming.  I thought someone had let him out and he followed my tracks and was about to ruin things for me. I looked back in the direction of my house, where the noise was coming from, all disgusted, and ready to hang it up and take the dog home, when I spotted a big buck headed my way, walking right in the trail that I had just walked in on. That was the first big buck I had ever seen while hunting. I always expected them to come in all quiet and stealthy like. Not this guys. I couldn’t believe the noise he was making. He barged in there so deliberate - like he was king of the forest!  
I grabbed my gun and let one fly. He ran and I was sure that I must have missed. I started to cry... I called John and he came down across the field in record time. I continued to cry as he questioned me and I shocked him when I used the “F” word for the first time in my life!! I showed him the direction he ran and we found a little blood... John looked ahead and said “there’s your buck, right there!”  He hadn’t gone 40 yards.  Obviously I conceded and had my picture taken. I still hate this picture of myself, but all I see when I look at it, is that beautiful buck! I don’t know if I have ever been more excited about any of my game animals that I hunted. A truly memorable day!

640 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly

640 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

500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly