The Gunnar Herbert Buck

Huge Suffolk County 12-Point

As told by Gunnar Herbert

The 2024 season was my 14th year in the deer woods and this season was coming with a lot more pressure than ever before. As I’ve matured as a whitetail hunter I’ve also matured as a father, a husband, and a person overall and each season I seem to put even more pressure on myself to kill a mature buck. Heading into this year, my brother, Dieter and I had many prospective deer that we were hoping could pan out as potential target bucks, this 12 point in particular was a deer we had history with. In 2023 we had an extensive photo library of trail camera pictures of this buck, and his genetics were already impressive... boasting a clean 6x6, 12-point rack as a 3 year old with good looking tine length and huge potential. When he showed up this season he kept that same antler configuration while putting on some serious mass. He was not however one of our main target bucks, being only 4 years old. Both my brother and I discussed and elected that this buck would be getting the pass as he could blow up into a real trophy class deer if he was to make it another year or two.

Fast forward to October and opening of bow season on Long Island. I was hitting the woods as much as possible, having great encounters with, and passing on, several 140 class bucks while maintaining my 150” minimum standard I had set for myself. I was regularly getting 3-4 sits in the stand per week and hunting properties all over the island in search of a whitetail that would meet my goals. All the while, at home, my wife was nine months pregnant carrying our third child and taking care of our two toddlers. Her due date was the third week of November and I knew with each hunt that passed I would be under a stricter time crunch. Late October rolled around and all my hunting buddies, including my brother, started putting quality trophy whitetail on the ground. This only put more pressure on me to perform as everyone expected me to.

The first week of November we had bucks all over the island rutting hard. Several quality bucks in daylight often and I knew this would be my best chance... perhaps final chance to make it happen. At the same time I learned of several other hunters that were pursuing the 12-point buck that I was planning to pass. I was very confident that he did not have great odds of making it another season. That is when my brother and I both decided that if he was going to be harvested this season, I was going to be the one to do it. I was banking on Saturday, November 9th, as my “kill day”. I knew that a cold front was moving in and watching the trail camera picture coming in on Friday gave me a ton of confidence. The day before the harvest I had two shooters chasing does all day long in front of several of my trail cameras along with a slew of smaller bucks, one of the shooters was the 6x6.

The morning of the 9th I headed to the woods, planning to get to the stand as early as possible to hopefully avoid the bucks which I knew had to be close. I stepped foot in the woods in complete darkness and instantly the area reeked of rutting buck. A few steps in and I could hear clear chasing action. I crept to my tree as quietly as possible and got my sticks & stand hung. Right away I was surrounded by deer. I could hear grunting and chasing all around, all I needed was sunrise. A short time later the sunrise came and the action continued. I watched several 100-120 class bucks in search mode come past right under my stand and a few times I caught glimpses of what appeared to be a mature buck just on the edge of my visibility through the brush, I guessed it had to be him.

Just like they had read the script the hot doe he was with came towards me at a steady pace with him hot on her tail. I knew once I laid eyes on him that he was bigger than I originally thought based on trail camera pictures alone. The action that followed was what lead this to being probably one of the craziest hunts of my life. I watched him posture up and assert his dominance as he fended off several other smaller bucks before eventually mounting and breeding the doe in a small thicket about 25 yards from me. Watching him navigate the woods was awesome, he would not take a step without throwing his head up in the air and scent checking. For whatever reason, he walked around the other side on the thicket and the doe started heading the other direction. She was headed towards a very large piece of woods where I thought they would disappear and my hunt would be over. I had one small lane where he was going to pass through but it was a pretty far shot.

He was just over 35 yards and started to trot after the doe when I took a shot at him at about 6:45 am. The shot went about an inch under him and it was a clean miss. The deer, however, did not notice and I was confident I could get another shot after what happened next. More than half a dozen bucks came in from every direction. They were grunting, fighting, and chasing and the 6x6 was ready to defend his doe. I heard him do what would only be described as a buck growl followed by a loud snort-wheeze, he would do this about 15 times and that really got my heart pounding. All the while he was with the doe staying about 45 yards out.

Next, the doe decided to walk directly towards me, making a b-line for my tree. She came all the way in until she was standing directly under my platform. Then the 12-point came in right after her, walking directly into my widest shooting lane, but he was facing directly at me. He began to bob his head trying to pick me out of the tree and I knew I was pinned down. He was only 8 yards from me and I didn’t have much cover. But, once again luck was on my side as a smaller buck from behind me made its move on the doe. The 12-point dropped his head and turned 90 degrees to posture up for a fight. That turn was all I needed as he was now broadside at 8 yards.