How I Took the Buck that Nobody Else Could Take with Tad Brown, Michael Waddell, Preston Pittman, Troy Ruiz and Gary Sefton
Tad Brown Removes the Hunting Pressure
 Editor’s Note: Bucks of legend, those seldom seen and mostly nocturnal, that no one can take but that everyone is after have developed reputations of having almost-supernatural powers over the years. This week, we’ll learn how some of the nation's best deer hunters successfully have pitted their skills against the bucks with the big  reputations.
My friend Tad Brown had a problem. Every morning as the sun started coming up in the woodlot where he hunted, Brown would see an elderly man hunting on the ground 50 to 70 yards in front of him. Then every afternoon when he went to his stand site, that same hunter would sit in that same spot. Brown had scouted intensively and knew because of the rubs and the deer tracks he'd seen that a big buck lived in that region. "I'd just moved to Auxvasse, Missouri, and I really didn't have another place to hunt," Brown, a nationally-known hunter who is with Flambeau, recalled. "The only spot I could find was a piece of property where the landowner allowed his family and neighbors to hunt. That's the place I'd scouted. But the old gentleman hunting in front of me didn't seem like he was going to budge, and I didn't have another place to go." Although Brown spotted some small bucks and does, he felt certain a nice buck lived in those woods. To avoid the other hunter, Brown hunted in the middle of the day, but he still didn't see the buck he wanted to take.
"Finally I decided I'd just get elbow to elbow with the other hunter," Brown explained. "I noticed that the elderly man would leave the woods about five to 10 minutes before dark to get to his vehicle by nightfall. One afternoon, near the end of  deer season, I remained on my stand until dark. I watched the old man get up and walk out of the woods. Before he'd gone 100 yards, I spotted the nice buck I'd hoped to see. That 7-point buck came down the trail where I'd expected him to and went right past where the old man had been sitting. When the deer was less than 30 yards, I took him with my muzzleloader. This 3-1/2-year-old buck scored 107 points on the Boone and Crockett scale. He was the biggest buck on the property, according to the landowner. I'm totally convinced that the buck was watching that older hunter. And when he saw the man leave the woods, the buck felt he safely could leave the thick cover and come down the trails he would normally run after dark."
Most of us know that hunting pressure can move deer out of an area. In this instance, with the removal of hunting pressure, the buck moved quickly back into the region.
Tomorrow: Hunt ‘Em Backwards with Michael Waddell |
