The story actually starts early in the morning when we glassed these bucks up and put the sneak on them, only to lose them in some thick trees without ever snapping a picture.  To say we were disappointed would be a great understatement.  I cant speak for my brother but I was physically sick!  We knew they were great bucks and we knew we had missed a golden opportunity that may never present itself again. 

Later this same day, after the morning deer looking was over, we could be found sulking around camp thinking about how close we were to getting some shots of some great looking bucks and how the odds of the opportunity presenting itself again were slim to none.  Eventually late morning gave way to late afternoon and late afternoon gave way to evening and we again hit the road to try and find some deer to photograph.  We drove all over the place and couldn’t find a thing to get excited about.  We even took the kids and went for several small hikes and glassed hard and still nothing.  With the last of the photographing light fading my brother and I decided to take the kids and run down to where we had lost the herd of big bucks earlier in the day and take a look on the off chance the deer didn’t run as far as we thought they did and they would still be hanging out in the same area.

Imagine our surprise and astonishment when we rounded a corner very near where we had lost the deer earlier in the day and there they were!  The same bucks form the morning and they were almost in the same exact spot.  We quickly set up the camera and readied everything to try some photos in the low light.  I turned back just before we started shooting and glanced at the kids.  What I saw was priceless, the usually rowdy, way to loud bunch of kids were frozen perfectly still and not making a peep.  They were just staring at us and the bucks.  They were in awe and remained motionless and silent the entire time we were shooting.  It was an awesome experience to photograph this caliber of buck with all my kiddos in tow.  I know they thought seeing these bucks was pretty special and I know my little son saw them because he spent a good part of the next day running around with sticks held up to his head asking me to take his picture.  I think he figured out how to get my attention. 

These aren’t the sharpest pictures we have ever taken because the light was incredibly low as we were shooting.  Actually, it is really quite incredible the pictures turned out as well as they did.  Hope you all enjoy them as much as we enjoyed taking them and stay tuned because next I plan to post the big buck that we were lucky enough to photograph.

From the apex of a small hill we could see that the biggest and the second biggest bucks had bedded under a burnt out log and we thought if we could get around behind the log and slowly sneak in on them that way we may have a chance.  The unknown was the smallest of the bucks, we had no idea where he was and we knew we could jump him at any time and that would be the end of the sneak and the day.  We hastily made our way to a point we could approach the log from the back and started a painstakingly slow stalk.  With the sun dropping and with it the light, we crested a small hill that allowed us to see the log the deer were bedded under.  As we as we krept closer the back side of the log we could see the antlers of the bigger buck sticking up over the log.  It was a thrill to put a sneak on, always knowing that the buck was still there.  As we got closer and closer our smiles grew and grew.  Once we were about 20 yards away I set up the tripod and camera and tested the lighting.  Once this was complete I signaled my brother to move closer and see if he could stand the deer up without startling them out of the area. 

It only took several minutes for my brother to be within 5 feet of touching the deers antlers.  Here he stopped and started trying to make any little noise he could to stand the deer up.  The plan worked perfectly, we watched as the bigger bucks antlers started turning from side to side trying to figure out what was up.  After a few seconds both bucks stood up and began to look around.  I started snapping photos as my brother lay hidden on the other side of the log, concealed from their searching gaze.  I remember wishing I had a smaller lens with me to get the deer looking right over my brother who was hiding mere feet from them.  We were super excited with the way the photos turned out.  The bucks aren’t necessarily wall hangers but the colors are nice and even small bucks are better than nothing on a long day of scouting around.

These great photos of the buck we call Tree Scraper were taken by Daren Brooks.  I didn’t realize this was Tree Scraper at first as he is smaller this year than he has been the 2 years prior.  He has also not had the one weak fork in the back prior to this year.  He is still a fantastic buck, it will be interesting to see how he looks next year, i am wondering if the antler growth is a result of nutrition or if he is just getting old.  Thanks to Daren for sharing the photos!
Photo by Darren Brooks

I snapped this last photo as old Tree Scraper tried to figure out just what I was and what I was doing.  It is always awesome to see some of these big bucks return year after year.  I cant help but wonder where he goes in the summer and how he consistently avoids the hunters; its as if hes a ghost and appears every year out of nowhere.
Photo by Seth Topham

No great story on this buck, just a buck I found from the road that seemed to want his photo taken.  The buck is kind of unique in that it has two eye guards on each side, two eye guards is not in itself strange but the location of the second ones on this particular buck is strange.  My brother, buddy and I found the left antler off this buck when shed season rolled around, unfortunately he had broke that second eye guard off by the the time he dropped.  We found the antler about a mile from where I snapped this photo.

As we were heading down a dirt road to a turn around spot my dad mentioned that perhaps we should go glass of the rim a nearby canyon.  This sounded good to all, and we made our way the short distance to the lip of a deep canyon.

We sat there only a short while when my brother and I, as usually happens, got ants in our pants.  We decided I would walk down the east side of the canyon, my brother would go down the bottom, and my dad would stay and watch from where he was on the rim.  Immediately after splitting up my brother split like a mountain goat down the canyon and I wandered along the lip.  After a short time I lost hope and motivation and made my way back to my dad.  I hadn’t seen a thing so imagine my surprise when my dad excitedly proclaimed, “did you see that buck”?  “No”, I answered, “was it big”? Turns out my dad had seen the buck about a half mile away as it exited the canyon as soon as my brother hit the bottom.  As I pressed him for details on the buck he just kept saying, “all I know is it was big”.

As we sat there discussing and waiting for my brother I saw a doe run over a distant hill, my dad and I pulled our glasses up just in time to see the huge buck pop over the hill right behind the doe.  Still to far away to pick out much detail we watched as the buck chased the doe down into a wooded draw and never re-emerge. After about a half hour the buck never re-emerged so we figured he had bedded down and the hunt for a photo was on.

When my brother returned we explained what was going on and his excitement was evident as him and I set out while my dad stayed behind and stood watch.  What followed was the most painfully slow stalk I have ever been a part of.  The country was wide open around the wooded draw so we had to scoot on our butts for what seemed an eternity.  Finally we were able to locate the buck laying under a tree about 200 yards away.  I slowly raised my binoculars and took a quick peek.  I told my brother it was a huge buck with 4 on one side but the other side was in a tree  branch so I couldn’t tell what it had.  What happened next made my heart stop cold.

As we were sitting there trying to decide how to close the rest of the distance the buck went from a dead sleep to a trot down into the thick of the trees.  This in itself  was enough to cause my heart stop but what really almost killed me was the fact that when the deer trotted off the branch covering the left antler was no branch at all but rather a mess of points and cheaters like I had never seen before.  It was then that I decided it is much less stressful to try and close the gap on a deer that you have an idea is big  rather than a deer that you know is the biggest you have ever seen.  With the weight of the situation weighing on our minds we did the only thing we could do and that was to continue to sneak in the direction the buck disappeared.

A short while later would find us pinned under a juniper tree having a stare down with a doe who was onto us.  We sat frozen, I with my camera out and pointed in the direction of the doe and my brother directly behind me with the video camera trained in the same direction.  There we sat, motionless, as doe after doe and fawn after fawn even a few small bucks filed up to stand next to the doe.  Now what happened next will forever be imprinted in my mind.  While we sat, legs burning from trying to hold our positions, we saw a mess of points appear out of the wash below. Just the tips at first, then a little more and a little more as the monster buck made his way up, head down, to stand with the other deer.   There he was, the buck I had dreamt about, got out of bed at 4:30 in the morning for, spent my life’s savings on my first camera for, walked a million miles for.  A lifetime of dreaming and chasing around in the hills and there he was 30 yards in front of me.

The next few minutes were a blur as the only thing to break the silence was the shutter of my camera as I fired as fast as I possibly could. The experience lasted only a few minutes but the celebration lasted days.  When the buck finally left for good back down the draw he had come up, it began: the whooping, the hollering and the high fives.  My brother and I celebrated like two grown men probably shouldn’t but we had dreamt countless times about the very experience we had just had.  We then ran back to where my dad was and excitedly started showing him the photos on the cameras LCD.  It was a thrill to see my dads face as he was able to see just how big the buck he had found really was.

It was my dad who instilled in me a passion for hunting and more importantly a passion for the outdoors so it was awesome to share this experience with him along with my brother whom I have been dragging out in the hills since he was a youngster.  Now the tables have turned and he drags me around out in the hills but no matter, we share countless fantastic memories, this experience likely being at the top of the list.