Mitch DeSmit Buck

Muzzleloader Buck Sheds a Little Early

As told by Mitch DeSmit

ble to get a great look at his rack but by the size of his body and his demeanor I figured he was a mature buck. After checking one of my nearby trail cameras I was able to confirm that this busted up bruiser of a 10 point was the third buck I had seen that morning.

That afternoon, I decided to sit on the ground at the edge of the field where I had seen all three bucks meander across on their way back to the woods this morning. Within 15 minutes of setting up there were deer surrounding me in all directions. Some in the field to the south, some in the woods to the north. One of the bucks from the morning, a young 8 point, had gotten about 5 yards away from me before becoming suspicious and bounding away through the woods. Another small buck and a few does cautiously made their way east where I lost sight of them.

All of a sudden, I received a text from my brother Chad, who is also an avid deer hunter. “Slay him!” It read, which Chad likes to jokingly say to me from time to time when there is a small buck in range. So I assumed he was talking about one of the deer I had just seen. Wrong. I turned around to face the field and was greeted by a handsome 6 point buck staring at me from only 15 yards away. Turns out, Chad was sitting the opposite end of the field and was talking about this buck, not one of the ones in the woods.

“Uh oh.” I said to myself as the buck spooked and ran off in a hurry to the south with a doe.

Almost as soon as they disappeared, the young 8 point from earlier was approaching me for the second time. He had seemingly forgotten about the blob of camouflage and orange that had startled him before. After a few minutes, he again bounded off, this time making even more noise as he crashed through the woods.

Figuring that any deer in the woods had probably vacated when the buck spooked, I decided to focus on watching the field. I turned around slowly and to my surprise there was a large deer standing only about 80 yards from me, all by himself. It was the buck from this morning and boy did he look bigger in person with no limbs blocking the view.

Chad and I exchanged a few texts as we watched the buck feed for close to half an hour while another small buck and some does joined him. We both had our cameras so we took pictures and video and enjoyed the experience while there was still plenty of daylight.

All of a sudden, a doe appeared out of nowhere about 10 yards away from me and snort wheezed. This got the attention of the buck, but only for a second. A few minutes later she did it again, and this time she ran off, making the buck nervous.

“Alright. Now’s your chance to make a break for it. If you run now, I’ll know it wasn’t meant to be and you’ll live to see another day.” I said quietly to the buck, knowing full well he couldn’t hear or understand anything I was saying.

The buck let out some frustrated deep breaths and stomped his feet a few times, but didn’t go anywhere. He had made up his mind, and so had I.

One single shot rang out and a puff of smoke from the muzzleloader filled the air, completely blocking my view. Luckily, Chad had watched the buck go down right on the edge of the field, and quickly called to let me know.

We met up and made our way to the buck in a hurry. Upon closer inspection of his rack, he had busted off half of his right G2, the tip of his left G2 and the majority of both his brow tines. He was definitely a fighter. We took some pictures and then got to work cleaning him.

Here’s the funny part. Once we were finished, Chad grabbed onto his antlers to load him on to the four wheeler cart and wouldn’t you know it…the right antler shed right in his hand!

The other antler still seemed perfectly solid and we were even able to hold onto it with no problem as we pulled the deer up onto the truck that night.

However, when I went to drag the deer out of the garage the next day for pictures in the daylight, the other antler popped off!

I’m a serious shed hunter, so I didn’t mind having two more sheds to add to the collection. Especially since I have one of his sheds from the previous year that I found only about 100 yards away from where I shot him!

This was truly a special hunt for me. Thanks for reading the story!