KuduKiller
AH veteran
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2014
- Messages
- 105
- Reaction score
- 155
- Location
- Bowling Green
- Media
- 24
- Member of
- SCI
- Hunted
- South Africa, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maine, Alabama, Georgia, Washington, Wyoming,,, I am sure I missed one or two states.
I grew up on a farm in Northern Kentucky and we raised tobacco. My dad got me into hunting at a very young age but didn’t get me into deer hunting until I was about 13. I’m assuming he didn’t get me into it earlier in life because he saw it as a “hunt alone” kind of hunt. I didn’t see it that way and started taking my sine deer hunting when he was 9 but anyway.
Back in the late 80’s if you saw a couple bucks in the 2 week season you were lucky on our farm. Let’s flash forward to around 2010. I had moved about 3 hours away to Bowling Green, Kentucky and was a police officer at the time. I would usually take the first week of deer season off and go to mom and dads to hunt all week.
Around this time a very good friend of mine, let’s call him Adam would come with me and by god we would have a big time! We would cook big dinners for my parents. Mom had had a pretty good stroke around this time and had some memory issues and dad had no teeth so I made sure to cook things he could “gum!” Dad would always ask me “what’s emmul cooking tonight?” Emiril Lagasse,, .
So one night Adam and I got to talking. Our farm (186 acres) by this time was almost completely surrounded on 3 sides by a higher end subdivision. Adam says “ let’s make a couple nice food plots, put some shooting houses on them and maybe the deer will come.” That next late spring we did! We picked a ridge we could get to through the back of one of our old tobacco fields and began cutting trees, bushhogging, plowing and running the disc. By around June we finished the plot and called it “the g spot” because they would come to it. We built around a 6X10 shooting house around 8’ off the ground towards the back of the plot that was around 80 yards long and 30 yards wide. We left a good sized cedar tree in the middle of the plot where we could put out corn or whatever BS attractant was the flavor of the month to try.
So it’s 2011 now. The first season Adam and I hunted together in the shooting house. Talk about good times! We sat from daylight to dark, brought in our lunch and snacks and a few pee jugs. Adam and I flipped a quarter on first shot. I flipped and magically I won, . Both Adam and I took “good bucks, both around 130” and a doe each the first week so it was a success! My son also took his first deer that year during youth season which was a doe.
I left my cameras in until probably March since it was a 3 hour drive and I rarely got up there anyway. I got home that spring and started reviewing the pics of what lived and passed through after we were done hunting and holy s$@t what a buck!!!! I had 2 pics of him in late November on the same day, wow! Yup, definitely putting more time in the woods this year! The pic is included.
Fall of 2012
So my dad had passed in June that year and my mom had several more silent strokes but luckily I had a sister that lived close to keep an eye her but I tried to come up as often as I could. I remember when dad passed, Adam came up and stayed at the farm with me to help out with various things and honestly, just to support me. We got in the plot the night of dad’s funeral, just sat by the tractor and shared my dad’s last PBR he had in the fridge. I was a soup sandwich that day.
So during youth season that year my son took his first buck. Adam and I hunted together again that year but we waited on the buck we had named “jackpot.” I had several pics of damn good deer that year that were 150”+ but since I won the coin toss, we waited! Again, I got a few pics of jackpot but they were at night and very few of them.
Fall 2013
I had pretty much given up hope of seeing jackpot on the hoof but I still had a fire to try. Kind of funny but not really, during early bow season I called Adam to see if he was bow hunting with me the following weekend. Upon answering, Adam was whispering and made the conversation short and I thought nothing of it. I then called my mom to check in her and she asked “why didn’t you come up to hunt with Adam?” Awww you f$&,er!!!! He knew I didn’t want him up there without me but given the help he gave and the support he showed my family when dad died I kept my mouth shut! I knew he was unable to hunt opening week with me that year anyway!
Opening weekend came and went but I stuck with it. Daylight to dark by myself. On that following Tuesday I took some study material with me because I was testing for KDFWR ( game warden) that Thursday and I knew I stood a good chance since I was already a LEO. It started raining late morning and it was a pretty good down pour but it wasn’t too cold. I decided to study in the shooting house. I had put a small corn pile behind the shooting house for my son to get a “chip shot” at a deer a few weeks earlier. While studying I kept my eyes moving as best I could. The rain let up and all of a sudden I got that feeling. Many of you know what I’m talking about, that “something is close” feeling! I looked in front of me to the cedar tree, nothing. I looked behind me out the back window and “oh s$&t” here’s a monster! I got my gun up “muzzle in the shooting house, not outside the window” and sent it! My ears rang for like 2 days! The buck fell dead. I was so tore up I opened the trap door, left my rifle in the shooting house and missed every damn step on the way down! Crap, my rifle! I went back up, got my rifle and came down correctly that time! At that point I realized “it’s jackpot”! I went to put an insurance shot into him, nothing! I had forgot to rack another round in but I figured it out!
Jackpot was so damn heavy I couldn’t get him on the 4 wheeler. I had to throw the cable over a limb to hoist him up the best I could but he kept lifting the front of my Polaris. I’d get him up a foot and have to jump on the front as more weight to the 4 wheeler. I finally was like “good enough”, got him strapped up and back to the house I went. I took several pics and sent them to Adam. “BS, you photo shopped that deer bro!” After a few more pics involving my middle finger Adam figured out that it was in fact jackpot!
Jackpot field dressed at 245 and scored 176 3/8”.
2014
My mom passed in May. I know I mentioned a sister earlier but I have/had 2. So, after my mom’s rounds of strokes she was declared incompetent and placed in assisted living prior to her death. Remember me saying she was declared incompetent? So that was in January and she passed in May. My parents last will and testament was made up in 1979 and it had my oldest sister taking care of me and “the good sister” until we hit 18, the farm was to be sold and divided 3 ways but a clause was in there that 2 siblings could buy out the other for the equal share and be kept. So at my mom’s passing I got a letter from a lawyer with a copy of the “newer will” that had been changed by my mom in April of that year? But wait, she was declared incompetent by a judge in January and my mom had a new will made up in April? Kind of odd as well but the good sister and I received nothing from our parents in the will, strange huh? The “good” sister was the one that got my mom into assisted living, made sure she was taken care of, had food, bills paid and had things taken care of but the oldest sister got everything and didn’t do anything for my mom? Hell, she was barely even around in my parents later years. Oh, forgot to mention, she hooked up with a guy that had just got out of the penitentiary for trafficking meth right around Christmas that year. Funny too, mom hadn’t been gone for a week and they moved into my parents house. Regardless, the story continued but that’s for another day and some adult beverages. Needless to say, my family farm was lost to me and my good sister but I hope my oldest sister and her “man” enjoy it.
The memory and story of Jackpot will live in my heart and mind until I leave this place. That story has been told many times to friends as it’s almost a bitter sweet story but it’s true. I wish things had been different and I could have passed that farm on to my son, his son and so on like it had been from my GG Grandfather. You know what they say, “it is what it is!” I know my dad was with me that day I took jackpot and I joke and tell people that my dad led him to me going “here, that’s for the hard work and dedication!” I hope you enjoyed my story.
Back in the late 80’s if you saw a couple bucks in the 2 week season you were lucky on our farm. Let’s flash forward to around 2010. I had moved about 3 hours away to Bowling Green, Kentucky and was a police officer at the time. I would usually take the first week of deer season off and go to mom and dads to hunt all week.
Around this time a very good friend of mine, let’s call him Adam would come with me and by god we would have a big time! We would cook big dinners for my parents. Mom had had a pretty good stroke around this time and had some memory issues and dad had no teeth so I made sure to cook things he could “gum!” Dad would always ask me “what’s emmul cooking tonight?” Emiril Lagasse,, .
So one night Adam and I got to talking. Our farm (186 acres) by this time was almost completely surrounded on 3 sides by a higher end subdivision. Adam says “ let’s make a couple nice food plots, put some shooting houses on them and maybe the deer will come.” That next late spring we did! We picked a ridge we could get to through the back of one of our old tobacco fields and began cutting trees, bushhogging, plowing and running the disc. By around June we finished the plot and called it “the g spot” because they would come to it. We built around a 6X10 shooting house around 8’ off the ground towards the back of the plot that was around 80 yards long and 30 yards wide. We left a good sized cedar tree in the middle of the plot where we could put out corn or whatever BS attractant was the flavor of the month to try.
So it’s 2011 now. The first season Adam and I hunted together in the shooting house. Talk about good times! We sat from daylight to dark, brought in our lunch and snacks and a few pee jugs. Adam and I flipped a quarter on first shot. I flipped and magically I won, . Both Adam and I took “good bucks, both around 130” and a doe each the first week so it was a success! My son also took his first deer that year during youth season which was a doe.
I left my cameras in until probably March since it was a 3 hour drive and I rarely got up there anyway. I got home that spring and started reviewing the pics of what lived and passed through after we were done hunting and holy s$@t what a buck!!!! I had 2 pics of him in late November on the same day, wow! Yup, definitely putting more time in the woods this year! The pic is included.
Fall of 2012
So my dad had passed in June that year and my mom had several more silent strokes but luckily I had a sister that lived close to keep an eye her but I tried to come up as often as I could. I remember when dad passed, Adam came up and stayed at the farm with me to help out with various things and honestly, just to support me. We got in the plot the night of dad’s funeral, just sat by the tractor and shared my dad’s last PBR he had in the fridge. I was a soup sandwich that day.
So during youth season that year my son took his first buck. Adam and I hunted together again that year but we waited on the buck we had named “jackpot.” I had several pics of damn good deer that year that were 150”+ but since I won the coin toss, we waited! Again, I got a few pics of jackpot but they were at night and very few of them.
Fall 2013
I had pretty much given up hope of seeing jackpot on the hoof but I still had a fire to try. Kind of funny but not really, during early bow season I called Adam to see if he was bow hunting with me the following weekend. Upon answering, Adam was whispering and made the conversation short and I thought nothing of it. I then called my mom to check in her and she asked “why didn’t you come up to hunt with Adam?” Awww you f$&,er!!!! He knew I didn’t want him up there without me but given the help he gave and the support he showed my family when dad died I kept my mouth shut! I knew he was unable to hunt opening week with me that year anyway!
Opening weekend came and went but I stuck with it. Daylight to dark by myself. On that following Tuesday I took some study material with me because I was testing for KDFWR ( game warden) that Thursday and I knew I stood a good chance since I was already a LEO. It started raining late morning and it was a pretty good down pour but it wasn’t too cold. I decided to study in the shooting house. I had put a small corn pile behind the shooting house for my son to get a “chip shot” at a deer a few weeks earlier. While studying I kept my eyes moving as best I could. The rain let up and all of a sudden I got that feeling. Many of you know what I’m talking about, that “something is close” feeling! I looked in front of me to the cedar tree, nothing. I looked behind me out the back window and “oh s$&t” here’s a monster! I got my gun up “muzzle in the shooting house, not outside the window” and sent it! My ears rang for like 2 days! The buck fell dead. I was so tore up I opened the trap door, left my rifle in the shooting house and missed every damn step on the way down! Crap, my rifle! I went back up, got my rifle and came down correctly that time! At that point I realized “it’s jackpot”! I went to put an insurance shot into him, nothing! I had forgot to rack another round in but I figured it out!
Jackpot was so damn heavy I couldn’t get him on the 4 wheeler. I had to throw the cable over a limb to hoist him up the best I could but he kept lifting the front of my Polaris. I’d get him up a foot and have to jump on the front as more weight to the 4 wheeler. I finally was like “good enough”, got him strapped up and back to the house I went. I took several pics and sent them to Adam. “BS, you photo shopped that deer bro!” After a few more pics involving my middle finger Adam figured out that it was in fact jackpot!
Jackpot field dressed at 245 and scored 176 3/8”.
2014
My mom passed in May. I know I mentioned a sister earlier but I have/had 2. So, after my mom’s rounds of strokes she was declared incompetent and placed in assisted living prior to her death. Remember me saying she was declared incompetent? So that was in January and she passed in May. My parents last will and testament was made up in 1979 and it had my oldest sister taking care of me and “the good sister” until we hit 18, the farm was to be sold and divided 3 ways but a clause was in there that 2 siblings could buy out the other for the equal share and be kept. So at my mom’s passing I got a letter from a lawyer with a copy of the “newer will” that had been changed by my mom in April of that year? But wait, she was declared incompetent by a judge in January and my mom had a new will made up in April? Kind of odd as well but the good sister and I received nothing from our parents in the will, strange huh? The “good” sister was the one that got my mom into assisted living, made sure she was taken care of, had food, bills paid and had things taken care of but the oldest sister got everything and didn’t do anything for my mom? Hell, she was barely even around in my parents later years. Oh, forgot to mention, she hooked up with a guy that had just got out of the penitentiary for trafficking meth right around Christmas that year. Funny too, mom hadn’t been gone for a week and they moved into my parents house. Regardless, the story continued but that’s for another day and some adult beverages. Needless to say, my family farm was lost to me and my good sister but I hope my oldest sister and her “man” enjoy it.
The memory and story of Jackpot will live in my heart and mind until I leave this place. That story has been told many times to friends as it’s almost a bitter sweet story but it’s true. I wish things had been different and I could have passed that farm on to my son, his son and so on like it had been from my GG Grandfather. You know what they say, “it is what it is!” I know my dad was with me that day I took jackpot and I joke and tell people that my dad led him to me going “here, that’s for the hard work and dedication!” I hope you enjoyed my story.
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