For some hunters, it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
For others, its just dumb luck! For Me, it was both. And man do I feel lucky!!.
Growing up on a farm had its advantages in the hunting area. We had 300 acres to hunt and lots of deer to be hunted! I started hunting when I was 6 I would sit with my mom and Dad in the tree stands. My mom seemed to shoot a buck every single year, luckily I got to see some of them get shot, and if I didn’t I at least got to help clean them up! Hunting runs in our blood! It took me ten years to finally shoot a big buck. I became a primitive hunter in my older years. I picked up bow hunting in my later teens and enjoyed the challenge of it. I wasn’t able to shoot the first animal I seen or else I would be done for the season, so I was known as what my family called me as a “Trophy Hunter.” Now, I know there are a lot of different views on hunting, some people are in it for the meat, and some people are in it for the racks. I would say I’m in it for the fun. I enjoy every aspect of deer hunting. I enjoy waking up at 5:00am and getting all my gear on and heading out to pitch black woods! It doesn’t bother me one bit to get frostbite on my nose, fingers & toes. I might complain but in the end, I still get up and do it the next day! I’ve come a long way in my deer hunting views and management. We believe in food plots, passing on smaller bucks, and giving the deer a chance to mature. During the bow hunting season it’s normal for me to pass up 3-4 bucks and go a whole season without shooting a deer. I say “shooting a deer” because I am now known as the “great squirrel assassinator,” I like to shoot squirrels with my bow, it keeps me reassured I can still aim! On November 8th 2007, 4 months pregnant, I killed my first buck ever with a Muzzleloader. It was “Hercules,” a 3year old 10pt that scored 140”. We had seen him for the first time on trail camera pictures a week earlier. To my surprise he was bigger on the ground then through the binoculars. It was a 70yd shot through the heart. It was an amazing day for me! I thought to myself how do you top that!
November 8th 2008. 5:00am the alarm sounds. I had been laying awake for an hour already. I looked at Rich and said “Can we please get up now.” He laughed and said, “ it doesn’t get dark for another hour, your going to freeze.!” I knew I would, but I was so excited to get out there. It had taken me a whole week to find a babysitter so I COULD go out, so I wasn’t missing a minute. We ran outside where to our surprise it was snowing! Yippy, I love when it snows, the temperature drops and the deer move like crazy! We suited up and were putting on our boots when I realized that my father-in-law’s porch light wasn’t on. The night before he told me if the light wasn’t on he wasn’t going out. He is an “occasional hunter” this means, he hunts maybe two times the whole season. We just like to know if he is going to be out or not for safety reasons. His light being off also meant that the ladder stand he usually sits in was open. I thought for a second and decided to switch up my plans. In July we got hit pretty hard by a tornado and lost half our trees in the woods, this made for a really hard walk to my new treestand by the river. On the other hand the ladder stand was a little easier to walk to, especially in the dark. I decided to hit that stand instead of mine.
During my travel I counted 6 new rubs and scrapes that were made within the last two days, I had sat in this stand bow hunting two days prior. This was even more exciting for me. I got into the stand, unloaded my backpack, put my primer in my gun and waited. The wind was strong and moving every which way. It circled me over and over, as I watched it I knew my chances of killing something were slim. With such a strong wind I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hear or they would smell me. I sat for a whole hour and a half with no wildlife activity. The snow began to fall harder, I could hear movement and I swore it was a deer. I stood up, turned around and watched the ridge and valley behind me. Nothing. I sat back down and heard the noise over and over. All of a sudden I heard something running from my left, I looked over to see a doe running my direction. As she was running I heard a grunt, I knew she was being chased by a buck, with my experience I didn’t get too excited because I figured it was just a small buck bothering a doe, and by the looks of the doe she wanted nothing to do with this buck. As she got closer I realized the wind changed and was heading right her direction. She got 20 yards away and stopped dead in her tracks. I didn’t move. I was still sitting when I heard the grunting again. I seen a larger deer, but wasn’t able to see the antlers. I lifted my binoculars and seen this was indeed a buck, but I could barely see it, the binoculars fogged up immediately thanks to my contacts. It had its head between two trees and it was down. I brought up my gun to get a better look through the scope, as I was doing this the doe turned around and bolted up a ridge, the buck grunted again lifted it’s head just to give me a glimpse of the crazy rack, and starting running after her. I couldn’t even count the points, as I was counting in my head, I positioned by gun on my arm, made a pathetic attempt at a grunting noise, aimed and shot. The buck was in mid-run when he took a quick left ran 5yards and fell over. I couldn’t believe it. I through my binoculars in the back pack and flew down the ladder. I actually missed the last four steps and landed on the ground, but I didn’t care! As I was running over there, I had visions of the buck standing up and running after me, too many late nights listening to hunter’s stories. I shook the vision out of my head and kept running. When I reached him, I couldn’t even see his rack and I got a little nervous, did I somehow shoot the rack off? oh oh. As I drew nearer I realized that the reason I couldn’t see his antlers is because his head was all the way back with the antlers in the ground, which made me wonder just how big he was since his head was sitting a foot off the ground. One good thing was he looked pretty lifeless to me, but I poked him with my muzzleloader anyway. I began to count then, and couldn’t keep up, I counted three of four times and everytime got a new number of points. I took a picture with my camera phone and walked slowly back to the house. Deer Opener is a huge day for everyone, I didn’t want to bother anyone’s hunt being that it was only 7:30am. So I went home looked through some trail camera pictures to see if this was “Big Boy” the ONLY big buck that we knew of in this area and we had on camera. Indeed this was not him. Then I started to think about “Lesnar” this had to be him. He was a deer that ran out in front of us three days prior. He was chasing a doe across the road about a mile from our place. It had to be him. Finally Rich called the house. He whispered “Did you shoot?” I said, “Yes.” He said “ Did you miss?” I said, “No. I think I shot Lesnar, either that or its Big Boy.” He repeatedly said, “Whatever, Yeah, Right.” I assured him I wasn’t lying and he freaked. He told me to come pick him up with the fourwheeler. He was hunting about a mile west of our place. Within 10 minutes I had 5 people there to come see Lesnar, and help me get him out of the woods. We all sat there in awe as the points were counted, and we realized it was “LESNAR” We never imagined in a million years he would come by any of us. He was only seen at night, and over a mile away from where I was sitting. We counted 27 Original points, three were busted off during a very recent fight with another buck. He weighed out at 200lbs and has an official Boone & Crockett Gross Score of: 210 5/8” and a B&C Net score of: 203 4/8. It was an unbelievable experience. I’m still in shock and have to look at the pictures every 5 minutes. I can honestly say, November 8th is my new favorite day, and I will continue to be a very strong advocate for deer management! For some hunters, it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time. For others, its just dumb luck! For Me, its passing up the smaller bucks and letting them grow to be 27 POINTERS!
My luck would have it that Brock Lesnar’s mom was reading the article in the Pioneer Press and gave it to Brock the day of his fight to Randy Couture. Brock’s attorney called me and wanted to meet. We met Brock Lesnar and his family at one of their homesteads in Independence, MN. It was awesome. Brock’s dad was my favorite. He wanted to keep Peyton and kept telling us to come back and visit!
Luck would also have it that “Lesnar” made the 2008 MN Non-Typical Whitetail by muzzleloader of the year award. He also made the 2nd largest deer shot in the world with by a women with a muzzleloader. Crazy huh! Like I said. Some say its pure luck, I say it’s the HUNTER and also luck!
-No. I did not sell my head mount for $500,000.
-No. Rich did not shoot it and let me pretend I did.
-No. We did not have the deer tied up in the basement.
-No. We did not hit it with our car and pretend to shoot it.
-Yes. I really shot it all by myself, and I really shot it with a TC Muzzleloader.
God is great. Beer is good. And YES, people are CRAZY!
1 comment:
I know you shot it as you brought it to my house that day in the back of the truck! PEOPLE ARE CRAZY! You are an awesome hunter Kello! Then you got me who doesn't even know how to put a bullet in a gun... Delanie will have to show me someday!
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