It was a week of highs and lows. November 6th, 2015 was a Friday; after a week of work…and morning the recent loss of my Grandmother I needed some quiet time in the woods. I took off early from work with the intention of getting at least 2 hours in the stand that evening as Rut in central Iowa was already a couple of days into full swing. Settling into my stand that overlooks a small creek bed in a river valley…I started rattling and making grunt calls to hopefully provoke a buck to come in and check me out.

Well, I hadn’t set my rattle pack down for longer than 3 min when the first Buck came walking in from the south. I guessed him to be a decent 3-year-old..and he cautiously worked around me…all the time blocked from a clean shot by honeysuckle brambles. I turned slowly towards him to gauge any shot possibility but something wrinkled his nose and he went on his merry way (and out of range). In an effort to bring him back in I hit the horns one more time. Out of nowhere, I was surrounded…a doe with her fawn to the east and two young bucks…a basket and a fork, coming in to check me out. As one of them stood in front of me (almost as if guarding my position) a nice large-bodied brute appeared from the willows across the stream.

A buck I had named blades 3 years prior…only caught on film at night for 3 years in a row. He was a monster bodied deer with a decent 12 point rack…his body however seemed to dwarf the size of his crown. Neck swollen from ruting, 2 tines snapped from fighting that day (I know b.c I have a trail cam photo of him from the previous night) he came barreling across the stream…primed to fight. I held a full draw from the moment I spotted him, so when he cleared the final tree I took aim and squeezed my release. My arrow took flight and hit its mark. I watched blades run 20 yards before stumbling and dropping into the CRP. Having known I made a good hit, I backed out of the woods and waited 3 hours to go find his final resting place. With the help of my cousin, we tracked and found blades 70 yards from where he was shot…hauled him back through the CRP and stream where I took the attached picture. It was an amazing hunt…the entire time thinking about what a strange week of emotions it had been. The pain of losing a loved one, the excitement of taking a deer of a lifetime, and the sheer exhaustion that both had brought to my week.