I first saw this buck in October but never got a shot at him, even during the rut. Come December, things changed. I used to doubt the value of late-season hunting. No more! Photo by Mike Carney

AS I HALF HEARTEDLY glanced up to study the approaching deer working through the deep December snow, I assumed it was just another doe headed to the corn stubble. In the shadowy dusk light, I could see its silhouette from shoulder to ham, but when its head cleared the distant Osage tree, an electric feeling surged through my veins. It was Him, one of the bucks I’d been after since the start of the season. If he continued on his path, I might finally get a shot at him...

THE PRODUCTIVE DAYS of the rut had come and gone. The carnage of gun season had passed -- hunters had taken lots of big bucks all around my area near Peoria, Illinois. Now the weather was cold and snowy. What had started as such a promising season, with lots of sign and trophy buck sightings, was seemingly evaporating with each passing day in December. It was easy to feel dejected, even sorry for myself.

It seemed like just yesterday when, in early October, I had my sights set on two huge bucks near my property. Enthusiasm reigned supreme, and my confidence soared.

The first buck sighting occurred in early October as I sat on an evening stand in a sycamore tree near a fresh scrape. I always like hunting early scrapes because I believe mature bucks generally make the first scrapes of the season. Rain had just started falling, and I decided to hang my Hoyt recurve on a peg to pull up my hood. As the rain intensified, I began to question my intelligence but resolved to hold out until dark and use the vigil as a reconnaissance effort.

Looking back over my shoulder toward a distant house, I was jolted by the sight of a thick, high-racked buck some 50 yards distant. Staring downhill toward a cornfield, he stood completely motionless. His soaked coat appeared dark brown, and his rack stood out as if freshly polished in white paint. I fumbled meekly for my call and tried both doe bleats and buck grunts, but he wouldn’t even give me a head turn. After 10 minutes of staring, he marched confidently downhill, out of sight. At least I knew who was making the scrape, a fact I reconfirmed a few days later on my Stealth Cam.

The next big buck sighting came a week later in a stand close to my home. Due to a change in wind direction, I could not hunt the sycamore stand. Besides, while on an evening hike with my daughter, I had found another series of fresh scrapes near a rub line coming up from a valley, and I needed a good excuse to hunt there. So when the wind turned and started blowing out of the north one morning, ideal for this new area, I grabbed a Summit climber and slipped up into a black oak tree on the edge of the scrape line.

A short hour into my sit, a stunning mainframe 12-point with split brow tines, a kicker off the right G2, and two extra points below the left brow tine walked dead-on toward my tree. I already had tension on the bowstring when, for whatever reason, the 17-point bruiser stopped, facing directly at me, and just froze, for an eternity, as if he just knew something bad was about to happen. He gave me plenty of time for a detailed study of his rack at 12 yards.