Troy Esau

Every hunter has a story of 'the one that got away.' If you don't have a story like this, you have not been hunting hard enough. We sit around a campfire, kitchen table or bartop at the local watering hole, and relay tales of past successes and failures out in the wild. Similar to fishing stories that seem to exagerate the size of fish you caught, the buck that got away seems to grow every time the story is retold. Over the course of my many years hunting, I have a healthy handful of stories that did not end the way I wanted, and I can't help but replay the events in my mind, wondering what I could have done differently that would have changed the outcome.

We recently purchased a property of our own (60 acres), and this fall was the first season that we were able to hunt it as we saw fit, with no hunting pressure other than ourselves. During the early summer months we had many does, a number of small bucks, and one nice 5x4, which I would estimate to be a 3 year old. We ran a few cameras on the property and got a good feel for the group of deer that was residing in our bush. It wasn't until late October that the camera card-pulls revealed a bigger buck; one that I was willing to wrap my tag around. I'm sure many hunters can relate to the combined blessing and curse that trail cameras can be. Now that you know what is out there, you will settle for nothing less than the biggest boy roaming the area. With this being our first whitetail season on the property, we had a lot to learn about how the deer use it and travel in it. In our area of Manitoba, we live up to the 'flatlands' name, with very little elevation change. Deer don't have the option to travel ridge-tops, coulee-bottoms, or draws. We have a fair bit of dense cover with a few areas of more open poplar stands; therefore much time is spent analyzing bedding areas and food sources, and how the deer move between these areas.

Now lets get to the point. The bigger buck that showed up in late October, 'Left-Hook,' is an approximately 145” 5x5 (my rough guess based on the trail camera photos). After getting a few photos of Left-Hook, and knowing we had lots of does to keep him occupied during the rut season, I knew I had to come up with a plan. I worked to figure out which areas of the bush he was using more regularly by changing camera locations and trying to pinpoint where he was travelling in hopes for a daylight encounter. The last week of October and first week of November brought many pictures of Left-Hook on one particular camera, set along a small ridge between two slough-like areas. I had hung a stand near this area earlier on, thinking it might be a good spot to catch buck movement, due to it being between two known doe bedding areas. Now, with the confirmation the Left-Hook was a regular, and a good stand set-up, all I needed was a west or south wind and the hunt would be on!

On November 2nd, my wife was able to sit that stand in the evening. She witnessed a ton of deer movement, with animals moving constantly in every direction. This included the young 5x4 pushing does, as well as an approximately 120” 4x4. Unfortunately, things went south shortly after this. I should point out that from this particular stand set-up, you can see the mile road that runs along the north side of our property. With about 45 minutes left of legal light, a truck that had been cruising around slowly all evening stopped on the road, the passenger leaned out the window, and took a shot into our property. After the shot, the person jumped out of the truck, ran into our bush to see if he had hit the deer (he missed), ran back to the truck, and took off down the road at record speed. This event changed the course of my wife's evening and spooked all the deer that had been loitering near the stand. An ideal sit with the perfect wind, in the prime of pre-rut, ruined by the actions of poachers. Left-Hook lives to see another day...

Check back for Part 2, very soon!

Troy