"Trophy Bucks, A Breed Of Their Own"

By Fred Abbas

Michigan, being the forefront leader in deer hunting technology and deer hunter numbers, is literally blessed with an inordinate amount of talented deer hunters. Many of whom having taken numerous bucks, with some accounting for as many as 50-75 bucks over their life span. So why is it so very few of us could name even fewer of them ? Truth is, these hunters receive little notice outside of their own neighborhood because all of us deer hunters are intrigued by trophy bucks, and of course, those few who specifically hunt them. They too, are a breed of their own. Even legendary bow hunting great Fred Bear had once made mention of this very phenomenon many years ago, and that mind-set continues to this day. Trophy bucks become trophy bucks because they are secretive by nature, and in time they become reclusive, and nocturnal as well. Ironically, trophy hunters share that same reclusiveness, and they do tend to have a secretive side to them. Unfortunately that type conduct, which is a common acceptable trait amongst them, can just as easily backfire when misunderstood. Take Mitch Rompola for instance. Here is a man who has accomplished every single deer hunting deed that us common folk could only dream about. That means he has taken State record book bucks, along with numerous trophy book bucks, and just recently he has arrowed a huge buck that definitely would qualify as a new World record buck, if he ever decides to register it. Has this giant buck given the man his due ? Absolutely not, in fact every (right or wrong) decision he has made since has been put under a microscope and analyzed, mostly by the media, and non-trophy hunters, who tend to have a different perspective of the facts than do trophy hunters. Funny thing though, any true trophy hunter will concur that Rompola's behavior (up to a certain point) was absolutely normal, certainly his secretive reclusiveness fits the profile ... poor (rich) guy. What makes trophy bucks smarter than non-trophy bucks ? The simple answer is, intelligence in a trophy buck isn't measured in I Q's, it's measured by age, and age can only be gained by longevity, which in turn was gained by learning experiences along the travels of his life cycle, and eventually, total discipline. His strongest asset is to remain unseen and unknown, and in that, his ability is remarkable, and for the most part-unmatched by any other animal. But like any other living creature, he must follow the path of his life cycles. Which are not a matter of personal choice, they are mandatory. That means he must have food/water, safety, (usually a highly defensive bedding area) and reproduction to fulfill his life's mission. Although some trophy bucks may opt out of the rut for whatever reasons, the majority will follow through with their mission, and that's when they become vulnerable.
The moment a trophy buck becomes visible his mistake begins to work against him. Now the race is on to harvest him before Mother nature intervenes, and she doesn't allow for much time. If you weren't aware of his presence before, now is the time to check out topo maps and aerial photographs, that will show probable bedding areas and travel routes to food and water sources. Most importantly, learn how deer utilize the land. Most hunters make little mistakes that could cost them dearly, make a strong effort to control, what we call controllable mistakes, such as odor, noise, or movements, to name a few. After all, that's exactly the situation you need to happen If a trophy buck doesn't make a mistake, then Mother nature will surely claim him, and she rarely leaves proof. Interception points become all important. We never hunt a trophy buck anywhere near his final destination, be it a bedding area or over a food or water source. Especially on farms in Southern Michigan, the reason being, we want the deer to continue their travel patterns for future generations to come. Pressured farm bucks can become awfully unforgiving, and easily change their habits to conform to the next farm over. That's unacceptable to us because we know that if we should get lucky enough to harvest the resident dominant buck, another will always take his place, and because of the limitations on farm lands the new boss buck will almost always fall under the pattern of his predecessor. There are two time frames when a big buck is more vulnerable then at any other time. The first comes within the first few days of a new season. He had been complacent these past 9 Months and can fall victim to the element of surprise. Shortly after, he will without a doubt detect the predators on his home turf. Being the ultimate survivor that he is, he simply curtails almost all of his activities and goes nocturnal. We simply- break off the hunt on that farm, and try another. Eventually all of the farms that we hunt will share the same fate, that's when I humbly return home to tell my wife how much I missed her, do a little chores, take her shopping, and hurry back in time for the pre rut celebrations in anticipation of the imminent rut. This is the time frame where a big buck is most apt to make a mistake, he's constantly on the move driven by an uncontrollable urge to renew the species, reminding me of myself as a newly married young buck, same symptoms too. There is one other time frame that could be productive, that's during what's known as Southern Michigan's second rut. While it lacks the excitement and participation of the first rut it does occur in December. Regardless of who is, or isn't doing what, A series of events are taking place all at once. For example, hunting pressure has slacked off considerably, many bucks are returning to their past habits, some need to replenish the weight they lost during the rut before winter sets in, and last, some does who didn't mate during their first estrus cycle, come back into estrus along with mature doe fawns having their first estrus experience. But for the telling of this story, I'll back up to the point where this story really began.


It was my oldest son Greg, who first discovered the Pope & Young candidate late last summer. As is the case with the majority of farms that we hunt, this buck happened to bed on the farm over. Luckily his chosen bedding area was a scant 100 yards from our fence line, that put him in range of a new tactic that we were trying to develop . We couldn't very well go to him, so we had to bring him to us. We did attempt the usual tactics of making mock scrapes to hopefully lure him over, but to no avail. As time would prove, he was just too disciplined to fall for the old congenital tactics. That meant we would have to resort to unconventional tactics, we were looking to extract any little flaw in a deer's behavior to exploit it to it's maximum. When we invented a true Social deer call, "Bowgrunter+Plus," awhile back, we thought that we had total control over deer throughout the long season, and we almost did. Even though we succeeded like no deer call could, it still wasn't enough. We now knew that under certain situations we needed a bit more than sweet talk to convince a trophy buck to leave the safety of his bedding area. The solution, a combination of factors. We had to arouse a buck's natural instinctive sense of curiosity, we also had to have him respond to his social upbringing, and last, and most importantly, whip him into an agitated responsive state, and thus, a possible showdown. Timing was of the utmost importance, we had chosen the dead pre-pre/rut time frame where the forces of mother nature were just awakening in mature bucks. Yet, the timing was such that the younger bucks didn't have the faintest notion of the changes that were about to take place, and that's the way we wanted it. The devices chosen would have to be a mixture of both doe and buck urine, along with sound, our soft Social call, and again, of a doe and a buck. That calls for team work on our part. There would be no problem using the calls, but how can we deliver the scent on command? , which meant the scent had to reach his nose at almost the same time the sound reached his ears ? Worse, we couldn't very well have a pre-existing scent trail, especially across the fence. We had to have a spontaneous reaction out of him in order for him to grasp the illusion of an estrus doe and a rutting buck entering his domain, and it had to be so convincing that it would evoke duel emotions without further thought. 1. Curiosity, as to wonder ... who the hell is this nervy guy on my turf. 2. Agitation, as in ... bristling at the idea of some wise guy trying to snatch his chick, after waiting 11 1/2 months for her to show up in the right mood. Who amongst us wouldn't react to something like that ? Here we were, up at Houghton Lake, my two sons, Greg, Freddy, and myself, sitting on the docked pontoon, pondering that exact problem, of how to launch an airborne message at will, along with a scent trail leading back to Greg's stand ? we knew that the wind factor would favor the buck, but we also knew that with the proper caution, we could reverse that advantage, and use his own nose against him, and put the wind to work in our behalf.

The longer we discussed the problem, the less forth-coming were the solutions. Then all of a sudden, like a streak of lightning out of the blue, a miraculous heaven sent miracle occurred. Brought forth by a little angel reaching out to us in the form of, BUBBLES ... to be more precise, a long stream of bubbles flowing right past us. All three of our heads swiveled around in unison
as if on cue, back-tracking the source. Instinctively, to the man, we now knew our problem had just been solved. There 50 yards up wind of us stood my precious little 3 year old granddaughter,
Amber, playing with her battery powered bubble gun. (When she was 2 years old she appalled her mother's non-hunting family by stating that, "she was going deer hunting with Papa, and she was going to shoot a deer ". In time she will, with a bow. After buy ing our own bubble gun with a bigger reservoir, and a few adjustments, along with further experimentations with different unscented soaps. We now had the means to deliver the airborne messages up and over the fence, and the means to lay down a scent line back toward Greg's stand. We also knew exactly which buck we were going to test it on. Now fast forward to the final minutes of the actual hunt. Greg was positioned several feet in front of me, with both of us roughly 22 feet up, a bit higher up than normal. Since, as expected, the wind was flowing directly toward the buck's location, we were counting on this higher elevation to further protect our position from any possible scent seepage from our scent-lok suits, or high rubber boots, even though that was rather doubtful. Greg's buck came through about 15 minutes before dawn, and he wasn't none to shy about announcing his arrival. He must have trashed every bush, and rubbed half the trees in the forest. I really couldn't see who he was, but he surely sounded like a keeper. Right at dawn everything quieted down in our sector of the woods as though the unseen- creatures anticipated the final act that was about to take place. It was my job to start that process, as soon as it was light enough to see. I started off with 3 extremely low/soft doe grunts, that was designed to put the buck on notice as to exactly where the doe would be, hence the second and third insurance grunts. We waited about 10
minutes for his response, unknown to to us at the time the buck was in fact responding. I opened up the next phase of our sequence by releasing the urine scented bubbles, and they were performing perfectly. I then switched my calling to low doe bleats, and Greg kicked in with
the pre-arranged low/short rapid trailing buck grunts. At this point I was beginning to feel a little silly, and wondered if the buck got the message ? Oh, he got the message alright, he was on us within seconds, eyes bulging, and the hair on the nape of his neck was standing up, as I'm sure mine was too. It was then that I realized this buck must have been stalking us to get here that fast, and when he heard the other buck he became enraged. Thank God I wasn't the hunter, he scared the hell out of me. He honed in on us with almost flawless precision, missing Greg's location by 10 feet, looking for deer he should have seen. (we wear our calls facing away from us for this very reason, to avoid a deer pin-pointing our position, as he would have, had we been using the conventional style calls ). Why I was feeling the intensity of the moment, was beyond me. I normally don't shake this much, yet, I was feeling the heat of the hunt through my son ? Greg calmly drew his bow, took aim, and released. Although I knew exactly when Greg released
his arrow, I failed to follow it's flight path because of the speed of the arrow. Greg shoots the new single cam Alpine "Teton Lite" bow, which accounted for the extreme speed. So extreme in fact, that I didn't know that the buck was mortally wounded with a double lung pass-through. Ironically, neither did the buck, and yet he was the one who had just taken a devastating hit. What really confused me was when the buck jumped back in our direction, and looked away from us. That type response to the shot led me to initially believe that Greg must have overshot him ? Then when the buck turned and started walking back in the direction he had come from, I looked over
to Greg to see why there was no follow up shot ? Greg was smiling and giving me the thumbs up sign. I was astounded, no wonder the buck reacted the way he did, he heard the arrow hit the brush after the pass-through, (The clean slicing action of the Nugent blade is a-, trade-mark tradition of a blade that lends little importance to kinetic energy, yet maximizes the hemorrhaging
effect) The buck continued to walk away from us as though nothing was wrong, now that it was called to my attention, I could clearly see the blood flowing. The shocker was, his hair on the nape of his neck was still standing up ? Then in clear view the buck simply fell over dead. WOW, after congratulating an excited Greg, he said too bad we didn't video tape this hunt, it would have
made great footage. I had to agree with Greg because we had just finished taping "Exploiting A Deer's Weaknesses And Habits" after 3 long years, and the way we took this big buck was exactly the message we wanted to convey. Special thanks to Gary Berger for scoring and entering this buck in C.B.M. record books. G 126.4