Search for 170" - Frosty; the one that got away

Charlie Reade

Disclaimer: Any advice given in this blog is strictly based on my experience in the field and is my opinion only. I have a lot to learn still but enjoy sharing what I have so far.

Frosty: The one that got away. I often find myself looking at a short video clip I took in late November of 2014. It’s a choppy, grainy video, but I didn’t watch it for an HDMI experience. It was about the size of the deer in the video. I remember clearly, being a novice deer hunter in a pop-up blind sitting on the edge of a snow-covered alfalfa field. Watching does feed along the treelines. It was already almost noon, and in minus 20 degrees Celsius, my toes were telling me it was time to pack it up. The voice of my father telling me to tough out the cold to hunt the middle of the day during the rut was even louder.

I’ll never forget, in the distance, on the downwind side of the field, I caught movement. Across the field where does and a yearling buck fed on alfalfa sprouts they desperately tried to uncover from the snow, a buck stepped out that totally changed the way I approached deer hunting from that moment on. Watching that mature buck chase hot does and run off smaller bucks was like nothing I had ever seen. He was so much smarter than the other bucks I had watched all year walking the treeline from east to west, exposing themselves to anyone hunting from the roads. Frosty didn’t, and as quickly as he stepped out, he was back into the trees and out of site. He was using a small drainage ditch 20 yards into the trees to travel the perimeter of the field, while every other deer I witnessed simply walked the treeline. I knew if I wanted to shoot that buck, I was going to have to be way smarter.

As I watched this gigantic bodied deer walk out of that ditch and into a funnel in the field. Tongue hanging from one side of its mouth, it got such a reaction from me I couldn’t explain it if I tried. My adrenaline was pumping like mad. Unfortunately, I could clearly see that half of the points on his left side were broke off, and the right main beam was snapped clean off right after the G3. All I could do was turn my cell phone video on and watch him walk by at 40 yards. That season ended a few days later.

I ended up harvesting a 130” class 4x4 with a nice 9” drop tine, my first ever drop-tine. But all winter, I thought about that buck crossing the field, snow covered back, frost all around his mouth. From that day on, I called him Frosty, and what that deer taught me over those 4 seasons helped my hunting career significantly.

The following season (2015) I invested in a few more trail cameras, I wanted to try and get a better idea of how Frosty was using that particular property. I also got into bow hunting, and being very naïve, I thought that I could take Frosty easily with a bow. Little did I know, that season I hunted more that any season in my life, and never even laid eyes on him. I did however get about a dozen good quality nighttime photos of him (see above).

2016 brought the addition of a baby boy to my family, naturally, that meant less time hunting and scouting. But shortly after noon on November 6, 2016 (a few days before the below picture), I pulled into the property I was hunting him on and shut the truck down. It was a diesel, so I remember how quiet it got after shutting it off on that particularly cold day. As I geared myself up for what was about to be a 5 hour sit in the cold, I remember catching a glimpse of a doe cross the trail 100 yards down or so. “That’s a good sign” I thought. Seconds later, out he stepped. A deer that had a body that made every deer I had ever seen look tiny. Easily the biggest deer I had ever seen. As he stepped out into the middle of the trail, he turned his head and looked at me, then carried on not wanting that doe too far away. I was sick to my stomach knowing that he was just coming from the direction of my tree stand but heading the complete opposite direction. I sat that night; hopeful he would chase her back to their bedding area. But that was the last time I would see Frosty for the 2016 season. He appeared on trail camera in great shape in late December, but how could I ever connect on this deer?

The 2017 season brought even more challenges to our family, so it resulted in the least amount of hunting time of any season since starting deer hunting. I was able to hunt for Frosty a few times but was never able to see him on the hoof. I added even more cameras to the area and got more footage and pictures of him (see below), but I was never able to translate that into an opportunity. The season came and went quickly that year. I did however take a small buck with my bow on my last day to hunt, my first ever buck with a bow. And as happy as I was with that harvest, I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. I had so much to learn about hunting mature bucks. It’s like they aren’t even the same species as young deer.

Shortly after the season ended. I received a phone call from the landowner advising me that the land I was hunting had sold and that there were plans for a house to be built not far from one of my top tree stands. He asked that I pull down my hunting gear as the new landowners were not fans of hunting. I tried to convince them otherwise, but to no avail. Unfortunately, I had to go pull my cameras and tree stands down. It was a sad day; I’d likely never lay Eyes on Frosty again. But I was also very grateful to the landowners for allowing me to hunt there in the past seasons. Here is why !!! Enjoy some deer my friends and family have harvested with me while I hunted Frosty!!! (see below)

I couldn’t help but feel defeated by Frosty. He never even gave me a chance, but now I know that was all because of the things I was doing. He was a mostly nocturnal mature buck doing what they do best, avoiding humans and surviving! 2017 was a real eye opener for me, there was literally so much to learn, almost everything I knew up to that point was a wash. If I wanted to kill mature bucks I was going to have to get a lot better and a lot smarter.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks entry! Tune in next week as I continue my “Search for 170””

Thanks for checking out Non-Typical Nation

Charlie