Bjohns4628
New Member
I haven't ever posted on here but I decided that this would be a good post for my first one. My granddad, myself, and my cousins boyfriend hunt a small tract of land here in Thomas County. We have had this place for 9 years and really started trying to manage the deer 8 years ago. We have killed some very nice deer over the past 5 years. We have had cameras on our place for the past 5 years and we have never gotten a picture of this deer until September 23rd of this year. Our entire tract of land is only 179 acres and approx. 1/2 of the land is a cotton field. The wooded part is about 300 yards wide and 1/2 mile long with a swamp/creek running right thru the middle of it. The loggers came in back in February and select cut some big pines off the high parts and then came back 3 weeks before bow season and near about clear cut the entire creek bottom. Needless to say we were worried that our season was ruined. Well we kept the cameras out and decided not to hunt bow season to give the deer time to adjust to the DRASTIC change in environment. We continued getting pictures of deer and most of the bucks that we were getting pictures of before the logging took place. When I checked the cameras and this big boy was on it pretty much every day, I was speechless. We have no idea where this deer came from because the neighboring landowner had never gotten a picture of this deer either. That just goes to show you that you don't get pictures of every deer on your property. He may have relocated to our property from a mile or two away, but I just don't think he would have moved away from his core area in August/September, especially to a place that had just been mostly clear cut. Well either way My granddad, myself, and my cousins boyfriend were all excited about maybe having an opportunity and killing this buck of a lifetime. We continued getting pictures of this deer and on November 17th my cousins boyfriend got that opportunity. The stand he was sitting in sits 75 yards off of that creek with a food plot between the stand and creek. Behind the stand is 75 yards of SUPER thick scrub oaks and then houses and the road. At 8:30 he looked to his right and this buck was stepping out of the thicket into the plot and he made a perfect shot. The buck weighed 205 and was 5 1/2 years old. He had 13 scoreable points. Anyone want to try and guess what his green gross score was? When we got this property 9 years ago we didn't get a single picture of a deer over 100 inches. The place hadn't been hunted much except for the previous landowner going maybe 2-3 times a year. We started only shooting mature deer 4 1/2 years old or older unless it was a "kull" buck and started trying to get our buck to doe ratio a lot better. We are just a "working class" family so we can't afford to spend lots of money on the place. We have a small 40 hp tractor so we aren't able to plant massive food plots but we plant 5 small 1/3 acre plots 3-4 times a year. (We plant peas/soybeans in the summer twice because they don't last and we plant a cool season mix end of August and again at the end of the season). 9 years ago I never would have thought we would be killing deer like this, but that just goes to show you that you don't have to have 1000's of acres and massive food plots planted with top of the line seed to kill nice mature deer. I enjoy reading all of the posts you guys put on here so I hope ya'll enjoy reading mine and I hope it's not too long. I don't see many people post from Thomas county so maybe this will bring the Thomas county guys out. These next 2 days are supposed to be the BEST 2 days of the season according to the "moon guide" and with this cold front I'm hoping to get my chance at a good one. Thanks again and good luck to all my fellow hunters!
