"He Could Run, But He Can't Hide"

By Fred Abbas

It was legendary heavyweight boxing great Joe Louis who coined this phrase, in reference to the much lighter, more agile challenger, Billy Conn. Conn all but had the title in his hands with an insurmountable point lead late in the fight. When, inexplicably, careless over-confidence, tinged with taunting arrogance set in ... big mistake. Going toe to toe with the champ was unheard of in those days, as Conn was soon to painfully learn, when he awoke. Although that historic event
had taken place before I was born, these thoughts of comparison between Conn and a huge buck would come to mind because of their strikingly similar personalities, neither knew when to take a step back. The "Conn Buck" had our attention for quite some time, although none of us had laid eyes on him. He had left just enough sign to tell us what he was, (any track over 31" is a trophy 
buck, or a deer with club feet) now it was left Up to us to find out who he was. Could we condition him into spending more time on this farm? As fate would have it, he didn't live or bed on the farm that we, my two sons, Greg and Freddy had permission to hunt, thus leaving the buck with an outstanding advantage. Starting in August we set about making mock scrapes
with a pre-rut "Buck Fever" formula (Hawg's Limited Products) in an attempt to get the big guy to spend more time with us, and get to know us better, oh, I almost forgot to mention, each and
every scrape was positioned in such a manner as to lead the buck into a funnel situation. We need him to make a mistake, otherwise he would probably die of old age. Within two weeks we discovered that the buck indeed was visiting two of the scrape areas. Now the odds were leaning more in our direction, and that wasn't all, in our corner, we had what he wanted, favored food sources, water, and when the time came, an abundance of over-sexed does. That's what we pay them for, actually, that's why we cater to them by our special plantings which are designed to draw an artificially high number of deer into a given area just prior to the rut. One night in the middle of September we were returning from dinner when a huge buck crossed the road right in front of us, stopping in the beam of our headlights. We were astounded by his size, none of us dared any movement, he stood there for at least a minute giving us plenty of time to study his antlers. Finally he walked off and into the farm adjacent to ours. We could hardly wait until the next morning to see if he matched any sign that we had stored. We were elated when we matched a hoof print, we now knew who he was, but what we didn't know was, his entry points from his huge farm onto this big farm. It stood to reason that a buck of this size didn't attain that size by being seen. We poured over aerial photographs and topographical maps of both farms looking for the
connecting thick cover that we thought he would seek out. We even considered consulting with Eleanor Roosevelt, if it works for Hillary, it just may work for us as well. Stands were placed in several probable cross-over points with the prevailing winds taken into consideration. Although my two sons are my best friends, I don't normally hunt the same farms at the same time with them. These big farm bucks are too unforgiving, and I prefer to pay the piper myself if I should err, that's the way the game begins, and that's the way it will always end, the deciding factor is who will be in a more favorable position when the mistake occurs. But in this instance because of the lack of vital information, we would try to coordinate our forces to spread out our odds. The first 5 days were quite uneventful, we did see a number of deer, along with several bucks, but the man we were looking for failed to show. My sons decided to leave that evening,

I assured them that if anything spectacular were to happen, then Greg would get the call in Beaverton-, and Freddy up in Midland. The next morning snow began to fall, at first I thought that this may have been heaven sent. For the first few hours of snow I was the recipient of total advantage. Scent and sound were drowned out by the snow, and at last I would be able to pin-point his point of entry. As the hours of snow dragged on the depth went beyond salvaging a recognizable track. We broke out even on that one. Then all at once, there he was, at least 2 hundred yards away on an angle that took him out of sight. I tried grunting to hopefully turn him, but he simply couldn't hear me because of the heavy snow. I mentally marked a tree near his travel route, there had been so much deer movement that I couldn't tell his tracks from others, but at least I now had a clue where to set up for the morning hunt. Nothing happened that day to write home about, except a squirrel in the next tree over took it upon himself to tell the world where I was. This went on hour after hour, I was on the verge of ringing his neck when out of the sky came a hawk, landing in the tree opposite of his tree putting him smack in the middle, now the squirrel was hugging the tree on my side away from the hawk. Be it fate, destiny, or even divine providence, I knew a golden opportunity for revenge when I saw one. I tried to make subtle movements with my arrow to chase the squirrel to the hawk's side, but the hawk caught the motion and flew off. As the days went by I tried all of the usual passive hunting tactics for this time frame. There had been a sighting of the big buck every 5 days or so, but always at a long distance.

it was back to the aerial photo and topo map, there was red marks and blue marks indicating the buck sighting locations and the many stand placements. I just couldn't come up with a pattern, but I did know that a buck of this caliber was making a most fatal mistake by becoming so visible during daylight hours.
It was a happy moment when Greg and Freddy returned to our camp. I gave them the up to date run down on the big buck happenings, and about the more frequent careless mistakes that he continued to make. Both Greg and Freddy decided to hunt on different farms so there would be no interference between the rematch of, as they termed it, "Louis vs Conn II". It was a very smart decision on their part because as time would tell they both had successful hunts, Greg took a 13 point trophy buck, and Freddy took an 8 pointer. It was as though I blinked and they were gone, maybe this retirement thing wasn't giving me the quality time with my family that I thought it should. With the rut around the corner the dynamics of the hunt change into a more aggressive style, and that surely beats the hell out of passively sitting around waiting for something to take place on it's own. Now everything goes, the use of scents, working scrape lines, rattling, decoys, grunting, and just about anything rut related that appeals to their odd behavior. The big guy was spotted again, and again, it was at an ungodly distance for a bow hunter. The weather was finally breaking and the melt off began. I had rattled in two bucks and one of them was a dandy, scoring in the 130s. on another occasion I grunted in two different bucks, each responding by circling my position hoping to make visual or scent contact, both missed the mark because of my Scent-Lok suit. Neig her buck was able to pin point my location, and both were spotted long in advance, so I simply kept quiet so as not to give my position away. Up to this point I had 8 different stands set on location, 13 different stand changes, and 35 hunting days invested totally on this big buck alone. Then a miracle took place that would turn this hunt around. The big guy was spotted once again, and as usual, a great distance away. But what caught my eye was all four of his feet up to his ankles was evenly covered with jet black muck ? Reminding me of an incident when I was a kid at Camp Dearborn, there on the beach was a peacock of a man wearing his daring French cut bathing suit, topped off with knee length black stockings and shoes, most memorable. Like a bolt of lightning it struck me why I couldn't determine his entry point. Like most farms of it's day , tiles were buried to carry rain or melting snow runoff to be deposited in low useless areas. only once had I noticed this taking place after a massive rain penetrated through the broken tile creating a muck field, and now that's exactly what took place after the snow melt off. There was only one place on either farm where he could have gotten muck like that, and that was the only spot that we had completely ignored because it was quite open. The new stand was in position long before daylight. My expectations were soaring with the new dawn, a few hours passed and I still felt confidant enough to stay on location throughout the day, which is what I normally do during the rut anyhow, because you never know what a rutting buck is liable to do. At about 11:30 1 heard the unmistakable cadence of a rutting buck, trail grunting It was developing from down wind and behind me, and was definitely heading directly toward me. I peeked around the tree, it was like, "Oh my god it's him".
I drew while I had the opportunity, but the buck began to angle away from me. He must have been on a hot scent of a doe that came by about 15 minutes earlier. His neck was stretched out low to the ground and it seemed like he was semi-crawling in a crouch, sort of like a bird dog would do when the pointed bird moves, then stops, then moves again, forcing the dog to creep up again. By the time the big buck got even with my position his angle had taken him about 80 yards away. I gave him one low soft doe bleat, that got his attention immediately. He responded by turning and walking directly toward me. Although I wear my Bowgrunter call facing behind me, the buck almost pin-pointed my position, stopping directly in front of my tree, no doubt expecting to see the deer who had called out to him. I was shaking like hell, and I was afraid that he would hear my heart beating. Finally he turned just enough to give me the angled shot that I was looking for. I clearly saw the arrow slice through him, and within 75 yards he began to stagger. There was no reason for a waiting period with a hit like that, so I climbed down. I was awed by his huge size, he was a true trophy that will live in my mind forever. Unfortunately, I had no one to share this moment with, and worse, no one to help drag this monster to firmer ground. On closer examination I discovered that he had lost several inches from one of his tines sometime after the hunt began. To me, that meant there was a strong possibility that there was another heavyweight opponent out there. Some where, some time, he will have to leave his calling card, and hopefully I will still be around to answer to the challenge.

C.B.M. scorer/director Gary Berger from Houghton Lake was kind enough to score this buck for me after the 60 day drying period. The 12 pointer had a gross score of 183.5, and had a dressed weight of 248 pounds, placing him 25 pounds less than my first, and last, blind date.