Front end loader

Congratulations Sean Kirk Russell

Here’s the story of the deer I’m now calling “Front End Loader”

For those of you who know me, I put a lot of time into public land sika hunting, especially with the bow. It ain’t for the weak. Miles of hiking into some nasty marshland with mosquitoes that are ready to carry you away…not to mention the blood sweat and tears put into it all and let me emphasize the SWEAT during the early season. Going into Tuesday's hunt it was a hot one pushing around 85. I was debating where to hunt with one of my great buddies and he told me how about you go try my spot where he knew some very good stags were frequenting. He sent me a few pins and told me how to get in there little did I know what I was getting myself into. Started my hike around 2:30 pm and it took me about an hour to get to the spot sweating my ass off! By the time I got to the tree, I had already drunk the only water I brought with me and immediately regretted that. I was finally settled in around 4 pm and luckily for the first hour or so things were slow giving me time to relax a bit. Started out hearing a couple of bugles off in the distance around 5:30 and had high hopes that some deer would start moving soon. Not long after I started doing some calling hoping to sweet talk one into the opening I was hunting. Around 6 I could hear some phrag breaking off behind me not far and let out a growl thinking it could be a stag. A few minutes went by and he stepped out at 25 yards and immediately I knew it was a shooter. The first thing I saw was the big hooks. When he came out to the edge of the opening he was feeding on the phrag tops and working my way but it was going to be tough getting a shot from where he came out. He ended up taking his sweet time eating on phrag and only taking one or two steps every 5 minutes or so. This made for a very nerve-racking half hour as I had to sit there and watch him feed while well inside of bow range with no shot opportunity. After about a half hour some more deer started to show up. Out came a spike from in front followed by a big tall 4 point. which I would have shot any day of the week if it weren’t for this big 6 already standing behind me. After the 4 came another smaller 6. The big 4 points and smaller 6 put on a great show for me growling and mewing while doing some sparing as well. Mind you all 4 of these stags were now all inside of 25 yards. Luckily I had the wind to my favor and none of these deer ever knew I was there. It’s hard enough to keep your composure with one stag in close let alone 4 of them with 2 of them being deer I would have been super excited to put my hands on. I had made up my mind I wanted the big 6 and was going to wait for him to hopefully give me a shot and come out into my opening which happened to be at 15 yards. Having the other deer around the big 6 was perfectly content and continued to feed on phrag and work his way up to the opening. Finally, after about 45 minutes he stepped into that opening and when he put his head down for a drink of water I was able to get drawn back and take my shot. Years ago I lost a big stag due to a shoulder hit and I was scared to have that happen all over again. Because of that and me shaking like a leaf, I ended up hitting further back than I would have liked to. He jumped and ran 10 yards back into the phrag where I could not get a second shot at him. A few minutes went by and he was still standing there just being able to see his rack and then he vanished. Knowing I made a marginal shot but a lethal shot I elected to back out and not even look for first blood. I knew as long as the deer wasn’t pushed he should bed up close by and be laying there for me in the morning. This ended with a sleepless night and second-guessing everything I did just praying he didn’t go too far and that he would bed up and expire. Went back in at 7 am and went to where I saw him go in. With only a couple of specks of blood, I was able to find the trail he went in on but it wasn’t looking great which I was kind of expecting. Slowly working my way up the trail just a couple drops here and there I was getting a little worried but only 25 yards up the trail there he lay dead as could be right in his bed. And I got to put my hands on my biggest bow stag to date. If it weren’t for me backing out that night I truly do believe I would have jumped him up and potentially would have never found this deer. When in doubt it’s always best to back out. It might be hard to do so but with a back of liver and front of a gut shot a deer can take many hours to expire typically they won’t go far if they aren’t spooked and that’s exactly what he did. This hunt sits at the top of the list for one of the best seats I have ever had in the marsh. Seeing multiple stags in close and not being busted which having the right wind played a big part in that. It was also the most nerve-racking hunt I’ve ever had having to watch this stag for so long before getting a shot and then not making a great shot my stress was out the roof. Just beyond blessed and relieved that I was able to find this deer and he did not spoil it.

It’s been 6 years since I shot and recovered a stag with my bow. I’ve had many close encounters. A couple of misses and a couple of hits ended with a lost deer. So it was the best feeling ever to finally wrap my hands around my biggest bow stag to date. My biggest thanks go to my great buddy Robert for sending me into this spot and making this opportunity possible. If it weren’t for him this hunt would have never been able to happen.

~Sean~

Fastest hunt ever!!!

Fastest hunt ever!!

Where to start… The past 4 days I've been hunting hard in MD with my best chance at a good deer was waking up to a 130” 8-pointer at 45 yards walking away from me. That's what being sleep-deprived can do to you. I did end up with an awesome track from my pup Reese. I shot a big mountain doe that I hit back thanks to a stick deflection right before impact. Thinking it was a liver hit we gave the doe 3 hours to track only to jump up the doe 50 yards from the shot. Went back the next day and went on a track crawling through the thickest crap only to find the doe had backtracked and parished only 30 yards from where we jumped her. By far Reeses best track to date.

Fast forward to today. While in MD my cameras were showing several nice bucks checking scrapes on a ridge top that I haven't hunted yet. I decided to go after them this am. I was planning on being a decoy since the woods were so open. That was put to a halt when the wind changed.

I got to the spot and ended up getting in a tree that backed up to some hemlocks. With it being so open I got up around 30 feet facing the ridge that was about 20 yards away and about 10 yards above me with a bluff on the other side.

It's 630 and it's pretty quiet so I decided to slam the antlers together so anything in the area could hear it. Right after I turn on the camera and start doing an intro. About four words in I hear something coming my way. Turns out to be a big doe running down the ridge. Turn the camera to me again and I hear another deer. This time I see antlers. Grab the bow and turn the camera to the deer facing east. The sun is rising and it making the buck hard to see. He's messing with a scrape and then starts down the ridge after the doe and I throw a loud low grunt at him and he stops and looks my way. I pull back guessing the yardage to be 25 and put the pin on the glowing deer and let the arrow fly and it hit the buck a little high dropping him in his tracks (turned out to be 20 yards). I grab another arrow and finish him off. This is when the buck decides to push himself over a bluff and the buck ends up crashing down the mountainside.

I was excited yet frustrated knowing that I was going to have my hands full for the next couple of hours. I went down to check out the deer and he ended up being nicer than I thought. Went home to grab Reese and to get myself hyped up for a 200-yard drag uphill. The two hundred-yard verticle drag ended up taking me half an hour thanks to me for pushing myself because I had an 1130 hair appointment that my wife made for my son. The 1000-yard drag downhill was much easier. The Big 8 being run down also helped.

By far one of my fastest hunts yet it was an awesome one.

My little piece of heaven

Nov 1st is a rut day that I had never taken a good buck. Nov 1st is also a day that I would not have expected to have a mature buck making a steady showing on my cams on the farm. Most of the time, any sense of pattern had been long gone and the bucks I had been chasing in the early season would have been on to neighboring properties with better chances of finding the ladies. 

This property has a long history of a lot of great deer hunts through the years, but it has been consistently inconsistent. It just needed some more cover and lots of it.  Cover for doe groups and cover for mature bucks. If they don’t have to leave and always feel safe to be here, then that makes the chances of taking a mature buck go up.  When I moved closer to the property in 2017, I came up with a plan to hold more deer and have more shot opportunities on mature deer. It’s been 7 years, and the improvement is something to see. I could talk about what I’ve done for hours but basically, I’ve created layer after layer of edge and browse and some of the gnarliest cover and bedding with a chainsaw. I started with an outline of where I wanted to select cut the woods and made a hinge cut outline.  Once the select cut was done I created entry and exit paths to stand locations. Every winter since I have been burning areas and hinge cutting more trees in layers to create buffers and barriers and bedrooms for doe groups and bucks. I have designated parts of the property that I will never set foot in until it’s time to shed hunt. This year I have even changed how I park at the farm for the first time in over 35 years. 

I took a fantastic 10 point 2 years ago in October on acorns. He was bedding in some of my hinge bedding but he did not spend much of his time on the farm.  I had never gotten a pic of the buck. I spotted him as I was entering the oaks on the day before and went back the next day and shot him on the same trail I had seen him on the day before. It was an awesome hunt and a beautiful deer. Things were definitely on the right track. All of this is occurring while our area was pounded by ehd it was 2 solid years of lots of dead heads. Some good ones too. I passed on more bucks than ever last season including some of the biggest deer I’ve personally passed. Tough to do but plenty of does to fill the freezer kept me in the game.  

As the 2024 season got closer, I was feeling as though the improvements I have been making to the property were really going to starting to pay off. I was seeing more and more consistent deer activity. Good bucks that were actually holding tight to the property.  

One buck that I really wanted to have a chance at was always around. He spent a lot of time in and around my struggling plot in the woods.  I tried planting oats 3 different times this year but never had the rain to keep it alive. It was crazy seeing the buck there on the cam the same night I would burn or plant. He was also hanging out in my somewhat less struggling plot near the pond. The coolest part was where he was bedding most of the time. Early in the summer he was bedding behind the pond in a new hinge cut area that I had just created last winter. He was frequenting the neighbor’s soybeans and cruising back through my small plot in the woods in the morning. Closer to the opener he was coming to the woods plot almost shooting light. He daylighted 3 different evenings when I couldn’t hunt because of wind. When I did hit him there 4 times I felt like my entries and exits were perfect as I’d still see him on cam when I escaped for the night. I never tried him in the morning. The beans turned and things changed for the better. He started hitting my rye, wheat, and sorghum plots near the pond.The wind was even harder to hunt him there. It was very swirly around the pond. To make things even more intense. I got some of the live WiFi cams and numerous times while either at home or hunting another spot on the farm I would watch him walk into the plot while I could not be there.  

As we rolled in toward Halloween I was trying hard to find the right timing  to make this happen. I’m still blown away that this buck has not bailed.  Not so much from my pressure which I was trying like hell to keep to a minimum. But here it is almost November, and he is still here.  This has never been the case in all these years, but I feel it’s because I’m holding more does now.  The cover is holding them in places I won’t enter, and they don’t see me come and go. The drought conditions this year also had a large number of deer congregating around the I acre pond which was dry down to a 40-yard puddle. The deer were leaving their bedroom and grabbing a drink before coming to the plots. After a couple blown hunts and even trying to change the tree I hiked up to alter my wind I had to give it a rest. After about a week of no sightings of him on the cams… Ol boy was back on the plot 2 nights in a row so I risked an iffy wind on Nov 1. I bought some nose jammer as a last ditch effort for the swirls I had over there and headed in to the pond stand early. I sat there soaking up one of the prettiest views on the farm but was feeling anxious because I felt the wind getting a little sketchy.  It wasn’t the buck smelling me I was worried about. It’s all the does in the plot early and all over the place. This particular evening, I only had some little ones, and a spike come in early. They went and got a drink and came back with no alarm. I was feeling a little more confident.

I was kind of caught in a daydream. Thinking about what I’m gonna do to this place this winter when I heard it. The sound of a buck scraping leaves.  I knew before I turned my head around that it was him. Here I am. My ass slouched back in my saddle. Caught off guard. He’s a lot earlier than he had been.  My back is to him. My bow is hanging up.  He is directly behind me at 25 yards on the edge of some Hollys and small pines. He’s scraping and head up in the branches. I got turned around enough to film. I knew he’d come out to the plot but how?  He took a couple more steps in the wrong direction.  Stared under me into the plot.  Scopin. Sniffin. My heart was in my throat.  The wind was edging right past him. Please no more steps.  He turned around as if he was satisfied the plot looked good to proceed into. As he walked around into the path where I had always envisioned it, I thought how I just saw the missing piece of the puzzle to where exactly he was bedding and moving into the plot.  

It was perfect now. All I had to do was make the shot. And after all these years… I needed a dog for the first time. I knew what I did. I have seen it before. A couple times. It happens and it sucks. I hit liver. And the way he wheeled made me think that I got nothing else. And I was right. I bailed and came back in the morn to zero blood and immediately called my buddy Paul. I knew he’d have a connection. Very cool watching that little wire hair dachshund finds my deer.  80 yards from my stand.  I knew I would eventually find him. Buzzards or some other way.  But this was the move. Happy ending.  

So other than my horrible shot execution this hunt was as close to the whole package as I’ve been able to make happen here.  Hundreds of trailcam vids and pics. Good footage before and the shot. And the first Mature buck in my UC HD that I took the pics for.  Stoked for that. 

I’ve felt this before when I comes to shooting a number one target buck that you have a ton of pics and history with. I feel like I shot my buddy. No more pics of him on the cam. But just as I’m feeling like that I get the notification and I’m looking at a pic of the next one.  

My First solo Double!!

Finally have some to catch up on yesterday's hunt.
It rained most of Sunday and most of the early morning of Monday. Which was fine because I had to get the kids on the bus. With the weather looking like the sun was going to come out mid-morning I knew those toms were going to be active.
I have a habit of not liking to do things easy so of course I'm bowhunting my private pieces without a blind and hunt with a single shot when hunting public. When successful, the reward is such an awesome feeling.
I'm Hunting an area where birds frequent a field on the neighboring property. The goal is to sit and do some light calling with a jake decoy in front of me at 12 yards and great cover around me. Hopefully some love-struck Tom gets curious and checks us out.
I arrive at around 830 and its still wet and muggy. I get setup and then do some calling on a highpoint and wait until the weather changes. I do some work on my phone for about a half an hour, and I can feel the mugginess dispersing and the sun wanting to show itself. Knowing from experience if their toms in the area they are going to reveal their selves
I get to the high point and do some cutting on my glass pot call and get cut off by what sounds like a gang of jakes that are to my right 5 o'clock about 700 plus yards. I cut back at them and they short gobble again. Then I hear a deep gobble to my left 2 o'clock about the same distance. Wait about a minute and call again, the gang gobbles and the lone tom cuts them off with a long double gobble. Being that theirs is a gang of jakes in the area I knew if the Tom was going to show up, he would come in quiet not wanting to mess with the jakes.
For the next 10-15 minutes I mess with the birds with the jakes/Toms responding to everything but are not budging. I haven't heard the lone tom and I'm trying to figure out where he going to show up at (if he shows up) while munching on a bagel. Two bites into my bagel and I catch movement to my left. Here come this big ole bird strutting in right towards the jake at 12 yards. I freeze and the tom starts beating the crap out of my jake. I slowly turn the camera on and grab my bow. At this point the tom has knocked my decoy over and is dry humping it. I pull back and put my 15-yard pin on the Tom's dark patch above the wing and let one fly. The arrow fly's true and the Tom does a back flip and is out cold.
With a mouth full of bagel and an adrenaline rush in full swing I just sit there and take it in. By far one of the coolest experiences that I've been a part of (but wait there is more).
While this is happening, the other birds are gobbling, and they are getting closer. I go pick up the heavy bird and start messing with the other birds just to see what would happen. I started getting Sassy with both a mouth call and my glass call and they were loving it. These birds had to cross a road about 500 yards away and they didn't want to. I messed with them for about 15 minutes and then just gave them the silent treatment.
With no care in the world, I just sat there checking out the bird I shot. The next thing you know it the birds have crossed the road and are in the field gobbling their heads off. I get a glimpse of them in the binos and it turns that they are three long beards, and they are heading my way. I get another arrow knocked and give them a couple " hey baby I'm over here" calls and here they come.
The Toms head into the woods with the lead Tom heading right towards the jake decoy while the other two were nervous and skirted around. They all gobbled in front of me under 20 yards, but they were nervous. The closest Tom didn't know what to do and started to walk the way he came in. With his head behind a tree, I pull back and aim for the dark patch with the Tom quartering away at about 13 yard and let one fly. Arrow fly's true and again the bird is out cold. The two other birds come into check out the Tom and he start flopping like crazy. Its scares the two toms and they take off.
The good Lord blessed me with two awesome hunts in one day. My first ever double by myself and with a bow and no blind to boot. By far one of the craziest hunts, I have ever been a part of. As much as I'd like another hunt like that, I'm pretty sure It will never happen, and I am blessed that it did happen. Glad I have it all on video to watch again with friends and family.
The first bird was definitely the boss weighing at 23.5 pounds and the second a little under 18 pounds. both had 10" birds with inch and a quarter spurs.

On a side note, I'm using a heavy arrow with 150 grain 2" bladed Swackers. These arrows and broadheads did a number on both birds. first bird had a 5" entrance hole and the exit looked like it was shot with a slug and 12 yards. I decapitated the other birds head after it passed through the birds’ body. Crazy damage

With two days left of the season are you shooting or passing this buck?

With two days left of the season are you shooting or passing this buck?

I passed this buck; I shot two maybe a bit bigger than him and with a full freezer why not save him for next year. Maybe he will turn into a giant? It also didn’t help that the state that I live in only allows you to hunt until sunset…

That being said I passed up 4 3-year-olds last season hoping for them to sprout into giants only to never see them again. When hunting small parcels, it sometimes hard to pass up those mature deer with potential knowing that most of your neighbors will shoot these bucks. In the past I’d say 60 to 70% of the 3-year-olds make it. 4 years of age and older are 80 to 100 percent. last season what definitely a crappy gamble but I’m still sticking with the odds.

What are your thoughts?

Finally, things came together

This will be my second season, chasing Whitetails up in Connecticut and still trying to  figure these bucks out.  The area near my home that I’m hunting There are only seven does, a family of three, and a family of four.  with maybe a handful of local bucks.

With there not being that many does these bucks venture a good bit to the point that you might see a mature buck that you’re after maybe a handful of times on camera, most of the time just a couple pictures cruising through.

  I only had one picture of this buck and that was December 1st at five in the morning.  I gave up on the cameras and basically just hunted… My goal was just to bait a spot to get as much does scent in the area and have the bucks cruise through and check the location. It was working with a different buck cruising through the area one or twice a week.

Finally last night things came together with this very tight beam buck coming in at 4:15 basically scent-checking the pile and when he left luckily he gave me a 28-yard shot severing the Bucks ticker and he crashed 20 yards from the shot.

very thankful for this cool-looking deer

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