Staff Pick

John Gibbs 

Matt Laite

Marsh River Outfitters 

Jason Loblein

Third times the charm. 
The curse of 2020 followed me right into my deer season. The season started with an appearance on my game cameras of a “target buck” Well over 200 pounds and heavy, heavy mass, which gave me the motivation to spend most of my time in the woods, including a few all day sets. Unfortunately, when it comes to deer hunting, patience is not one of my virtues. On Monday afternoon of week number 2, after a little light calling with just an app on my phone, a very respectable buck showed up. He was kind of skirting his way down around me, coming in and out of view in the thicker brush. He got to a point where I lost sight of him, and I thought that he had gone straight away from me into the thicker stuff. I grabbed a grunt tube and gave a couple of grunts and nothing.... I had my phone sitting on the seat beside me and I reached down to hit another estrus call. I was so flustered, that I could get it work.... I was swiping and tapping and the thing was turning off and on, and the app was opening and closing.... I finally got it, and hit the estrus call once. As I turned my head back around, there he was, standing in an opening at 70 yards. He was sticking his nose in the air and trying to smell. I felt if I moved that he would bust me, so I waited, thinking I could get a shot as soon as he moved forward. Wrong. I think he sensed something wasn’t right and he turned hard left and walked straight away from me, vanishing into the thick stuff. A little part of me was relieved, because it wasn’t the big one that I wanted, but the bigger part, beat myself up for the next 2 weeks, wishing that I hadn’t waited for a better opportunity and worked with what I had. It made me even more determined and I continued to spend most of my time in my stand. On the fourth Saturday afternoon of the season, John encouraged me to try a different blind. He had passed a smaller 8 point there earlier in the day. After hearing many gunshots at my stand, and no sign of my “target” buck on the camera for 3 weeks, I decided to give it a try. I was only in the blind for 45 minutes when I saw a set of antlers coming straight at me. Once I decided which side of me he was going to pass,  I got ready. I had to make a blat to get him to stop (which I had never attempted) It worked, and he stopped. I don’t know what went wrong but somehow between the blat and the over anxious feeling I had from letting the last one get away, I think I rushed the shot too much. I am not sure that I was even ready for the gun to go off when it did. It was a chip shot, and I knew that I had completely missed! Even still, we looked for him until dark and went back on Sunday too, just to make absolute sure. The following day, Monday, it was rainy and windy, and I was still licking my wounds. That was the first day of the whole season that I took off. Tuesday morning I went back to the blind that I had sat on Saturday. 15 minutes into legal time, I got a notification on my phone from my game camera at my stand that I had sat all year. Yup..... My “target buck” was alive and well and there!! Now I was completely distraught. I started trying to figure out my strategy for the rest of the day. 45 minutes later, before I had made any real decisions, I looked and saw a rack coming up over a hill directly towards me. He kept coming and I got my gun up onto the window ledge. Somehow when I was settling it in, it moved and made a clunk. The buck stopped and looked my way for what seemed like a long time. I looked him over and he looked so majestic standing on that hill in the blueberry field with the sun shining on him. I felt slightly hesitant but decided that I couldn’t let him walk. Here’s hoping me and the other buck cross paths next year!


500 pts · Deer — Terrie Kelly