The Backyard Buck You Won't Believe

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jeff Elrod lives in Brady, Texas, and has the opportunity to hunt in some of the most buck-rich territory in the nation. Elrod has hunted deer for 17 years and bowhunted for 12 years. Elrod lives on the edge of town -- the city limits of Brady, Texas -- and often sees deer around his home. Let Elrod tell you his story about the buck of a lifetime.

"One morning before daylight, I looked out of my back window and saw a huge buck going across my backyard. I average seeing five bucks every morning from my tree stand in my backyard. I couldn't tell how big this buck was, but I knew he was a buck that I really wanted to take. I purchased a spin feeder and set it up on the back of my property. My family and I had hunted over and near feeders in Texas for many years, but I didn't know if the feeder would bring the buck in to where I could get a shot at him. I decided to try a tactic that I'd used in the past to take big deer: I made a scrape. Under a tree with a low-hanging branch, I took a stick and cleared the ground so that it looked like a scrape. Every day for 10 days I put dominant buck urine in that scrape. After 10 days, I put doe and estrous urine in the scrape. I used Code Blue, Tink's and Still Steamin' and put a different scent in the scrape every day. Sometimes I repeated the same scent every second or third day to give the impression that several does were using the same scrape.

"I believed that this buck bedded across the highway from my house, and I hoped I could get him to come by regularly by creating this scrape. I thought that changing the scent I used every day would convince the buck that several does were in the area and that he should check the scrape more often. Each day when I went to freshen the scrape, I would notice fresh deer tracks in the scrape. I knew that deer were coming to the scrape and that at least part of my plan was working. We had rain nearly every other day during this three-week period, and I knew that deer were using this artificial scrape. I saw tracks deep in the dirt around the artificial scrape, so I knew that a heavy deer had come to the scrape several times.

"I had my scrape on the downwind side of my tree stand, which was off to the side of the scrape. Then the buck would never smell me as he approached. The stand was 20-feet high in a tree and about 15 yards from the feeder. I felt like the buck would come to the feeder to find does while the rut was on and then would come by the scrape before he left the area. As I watched out my back window, I never saw the buck during daylight hours. I only had my feeder going off once a day -- early in the morning, which enabled me to hunt and see some deer every morning before I went to work. Since I got in from work after dark, I had no opportunity to hunt in the afternoon. Although I saw plenty of bucks and does in the mornings, I never spotted the buck I thought was working the mock scrape I created.

"Finally, I took an afternoon off and decided to get in my tree stand and hunt the scrape. I got to the stand at 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon. I spotted a doe across the fence, but she didn't seem as though she was coming in. Five minutes later, I saw a nice 10-point buck that would score 125 points B&C. However, he never stopped and offered a shot but rather he went straight toward the doe that I'd seen across the fence. At 5:15 p.m., I spotted a yearling coming down the trail, next a doe, and then 20 yards behind her I saw antlers. He was the biggest deer I'd ever seen. I realized I would probably get only one shot.

"I let the buck walk through a 15-yard opening. I'd set up the scrape just on the edge of that opening. The buck was about 4 yards from the scrape when he stopped and presented the shot. He'd just started to put his nose in the scrape when I shot my Mathews bow with a Rocket Sidewinder broadhead. I hit the buck right behind the shoulders where I was aiming, and the arrow went through the buck. The buck ran 70 yards, stopped, went 30 more yards and finally dropped. I found the deer in a small bottom and recognized immediately that he was the biggest buck I'd ever taken. The deer scored 139 3/8-points B&C. Although I only had seven acres right on the edge of town, I learned that I didn't have to leave home to take a trophy buck. While going through deer-hunting information on the web, I once read, 'The biggest buck in your county lives within 2 miles of town.' I found this statement to be absolutely true in my case."

Jeff Elrod brings his deer-hunting experience to the sportsmen at the Quinn Ranch, where he guides for the 20 hunters fortunate enough to get chosen to hunt the Quinn Ranch each season.

To know more about hunting on the Quinn Ranch, contact John Quinn at HC 69 Box 440, Brady, TX 76825, or, call him at (915) 597-2647. You can also visit their webpage at http://www.jquinnranch.com or e-mail them at info@jquinnranch.com.

Tomorrow: How the Quinn Ranch Manages Its Deerherd