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Mike Potter has hunted his 160-acre property in Atchison County, Kansas for the final 10 years. He’s tagged a buck yearly, regardless that he now has to journey there from his residence in Byron Middle, Michigan. This season, he killed his greatest buck but, and he did it on a sizzling, muggy day when most hunters would have stayed at residence.
“If I nonetheless lived in Kansas, I wouldn’t even have bothered searching that day as a result of it was so sizzling,” Potter tells Out of doors Life. “However we solely had every week to hunt, so we saved at it.”
Potter says that he, his father Larry, and his buddy Kevin Beer hunted the property through the first week of November, which is often prime time. However this 12 months was totally different.
“The rut is at all times through the first week of November, and that’s once I time my hunt,” he says. “However this 12 months it was method too heat in early November. Situations have been simply terrible.”
The week earlier than, Potter explains, a chilly snap had kicked off an earlier-than-usual rut. However they have been greeted at deer camp by 75-degree climate and a heat south wind. Potter says the bucks have been in “lockdown” mode as they stayed bedded down with the does they’d corralled the earlier week.
“We noticed virtually no bucks these first few days,” Potter says.
On the morning of Nov. 6, the three hunters headed out, and as soon as once more, the nice and cozy climate saved deer exercise to a minimal. They met again on the cabin for lunch after which returned to their tree stands.
Potter bought in his 18-foot-high ladder stand at 2 p.m. He was arrange close to a pond that was near a identified bedding space, and someday round 5 o’clock that night, a lone buck walked out of the woods and over to the pond for a drink.
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“I’d put scent on my boots that morning, and when the buck completed ingesting, he put his nostril to the bottom and adopted my steps proper to my open capturing lane at 30 yards,” Potter says. “I assumed he’d certainly scent me, however he was regular on that path, nostril to the bottom.”
The buck made a scrape, then handed behind some timber on the best way towards Potter’s capturing lane. Potter drew again his compound bow, and when the deer stepped into the opening, he launched. Fastened with a two-blade mechanical broadhead, the arrow hit the deer proper behind the shoulder.
“I noticed my arrow in flight as a result of it had a lighted nock, and I knew the shot was good,” Potter says. “The deer ran downhill right into a thick dry creek mattress, and I heard him fall.”
After strolling out to the place the deer had been standing, Potter discovered his arrow after which backed out of the world. He met up along with his dad and buddy again at camp, they usually returned to the dry creek mattress, the place they recovered the buck with an ATV.
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Potter says they estimated the buck’s dwell weight round 200 kilos. His taxidermist gave it an unofficial inexperienced rating of 171 4/8 inches.
“It’s the perfect deer I’ve ever taken,” Potter says. “Why that vast buck was cruising and headed to the pond for a drink is a thriller. But it surely certain exhibits you could’t kill a deer by staying in camp on a sofa.”
Potter’s method was the fitting one, based on whitetail knowledgeable Dr. Grant Woods. Because the rut revolves round photoperiod, or the quantity of daylight in a given day, temperature shouldn’t issue an excessive amount of into the choice to hunt or not hunt.
“Even when it’s 80 levels, however the promenade solely occurs as soon as the place you hunt, it’s nonetheless going to occur [during a warm front],” Woods tells Out of doors Life. “If [fawns are] born too early, they’re going to fall right into a snowbank they usually’re not going to make it. And in the event that they’re born too late they’re not going to realize sufficient weight earlier than the following winter they usually’re not going to make it. So the system is fairly refined over a very long time. The rut goes to occur on the similar time [locally, every year].”
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