Gr8 White Jr

Sorry bud but I have to agree with your dad! When I was younger it was the same rules with my dad. If I got anything less than a "C" then I couldn't go hunting. Guess what...it was the only thing that worked and kept me in line. You may be upset with your dad now but you will understand, respect and thank him for it later. Its plain and simple, GET YOUR GRADES UP and go hunting! -Tracy

Holy smokes!!! I would call that a 2x2, a HUGE 2x2! Very nice buck! No way on the european mount, that buck is definitely worthy of a shoulder mount. Congrats on a great muley! -Tracy

Nice buck! Way to stick with it and end that curse. Congrats to you and your wife on a fine buck! -Tracy

FREAK!!! Awesome find! Congrats! -Tracy

Great story! Congrats on an awesome buck! What a great example of how persistence can pay off. Way to go! -Tracy

You made me bust out laughing on this one! Congrats on a fine buck! Keep knocking them dead until you get that strip tag. -Tracy

Great write up Casey! Congrats to Cory! Good job getting him out there. Maybe now he'll have caught the "coues bug". -Tracy

Awesome! Congrats to you and your lil bro! Way to get him out there Casey. -Tracy

AWESOME!!! You're doing it right Clay! He'll be an olympic shooter by the time hes 10. -Tracy

Man Lance you sure know how to stack up them monsters! Your buck is unreal! Congrats to the TLO crew and to the hunters! -Tracy

Wow! Great write up! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. Congrats on realizing your dream on taking a brute of a buffalo! My favorite is the kudu, what an absolutely beautiful bull. Pretty funny you scaring the crap out of those guys with the fake snake. Congrats to you and your friends on a great hunt and some memories of gold! -Tracy

Holy smokes! Talk about whackin and stackin the monster mulies. Thanks for sharing! -Tracy

Beautiful buck! A true stud for sure! I miss hunting mulies. -Tracy

Very nice buck! I love those deep forks. Congrats to you and your borhter in law! -Tracy

This year was a very crazy year with a lot of bad luck stacked up against me bu I still managed to get my 1st archery coues. The 1st weekend of the hunt was amazing to say the least with nonstop action. Angie and I hunted the first three days of the hunt and we both passed on several bucks. The weekend ended VERY poorly! It’s a longs story that would take five hours to type up so I’ll just sum it up short and sweet. We had an issue with some anti hunters finding our spot and I ended up removing my tree stands. Angie and I had planned on hunting all three weekends so to say that I was disgusted about our spot being ruined was an understatement. I was very depressed and felt like my year was ruined. All week long while I was at work I tossed around ideas of what to do and whether or not I should try to set up my stands again and try to finish out the rest of the season. Since I didn’t have a set plan anymore to hunt the rest of the season I agreed to go to work on the next Saturday. Before I left for work I through my tree stand, pack, a set of camos and my bow in my truck just in case I finished work early. Well it turned out that I got done at work pretty early on Saturday so I jumped in my truck and hauled butt praying that I would have enough time to get my stand set up. After a long drive I strapped my stand and ladder sticks to my frame pack and packed them in and set up my tree stand just before dark. I had a new sense of motivation once my stand was up. The next morning I was up at 2:30 and in my stand by 4:45. At 1st light a spike came walking by. Not knowing what to expect my standards had dropped significantly but I told myself I wasn’t going to shoot a spike so he walked on to live another day. By 7:00 am two does had walked by boosting my confidence but also making me nervous as they acted very skittish as if they knew something wasn’t right. At 7:30 I looked to my left and saw a deer body moving my direction. As I watched closer I could see that it was a buck.. I could see that he had a decent little basket frame but that was it, I couldn’t tell anything else about how big he was because his head was down as he was feeding coming right toward me. I made the decision that if he came under my stand I was going to shoot him. Once I was committed I just went into auto pilot, taking my bow off the hanger and hooking my release. As the buck came closer my eyes scanned around until I found a shooting lane. As the buck approached the shooting lane I drew my bow and waited for him to clear. I focused on his shoulder and settled my pins right behind it. I released…. WHACK!!! The buck jumped so fast and tore out of there. I didn’t see where I hit the buck because it happened so fast but I was confident that the shot was good being that it was only 15 yds. I waited about 20 minutes before getting down out of my stand and walking over to check my arrow. The sign on the arrow and all over the ground was very promising, bubbly blood! I was confident that the buck was already dead so I started to fallow the blood trail expecting to find the buck in less than 100 yds. With a very large amount of blood I was very confident at first but that started to diminish as the blood trail went on and on and on. I came up on a spot that looked like the buck had stopped. There was a pie plate size puddle of frothy blood on the ground but no buck. I started to get nervous thinking that I might be pushing the buck so I sat down and decide to give it more time. After sitting there for about ten minutes while the clouds were rolling in, it started to rain. “Oh no! This isn‘t happening” is all that was going through my mind. I wanted to give the buck more time but felt that I had to push on before the rain washed away the blood trail. I continued on for about a half mile and dropped about 500 to 700 feet in elevation, the whole time I was completely dumb founded at how this buck had gone so far. I came to a steep drop off. I looked below me and saw my buck below me about 75 yds away standing with his head down on the edge of a huge thicket. I couldn’t believe it! How was this deer still alive? I watched him for about 10 minutes and in that time he moved very slowly, maybe ten feet into the thicket. I couldn’t see himt anymore at this point. I really wanted to stalk down in there and put another arrow in him but I knew I would be taking a huge risk of jumping him and could possibly loose him. I knew he would most likely lay down in that thicket and expire so I decided it was best to back out quietly and leave the area for a while so I hiked all the way out to my truck. When I got to my truck I sat down and tried to clear my mind. After sitting in my truck for quite some time my friend Justin (Gotcoues) and his son Dillon came driving up pretty fast. Justin jumped out of his truck and did a little dance. At that point I knew he had a buck down. I told him that I had shot one also and after exchanging stories we decided to go retrieve his buck first and give my buck some extra time just to be safe. After a long pack out with Justin’s buck we returned to the area that I shot my buck. Justin’s good friend Harvey had joined us to help with all the packing out of bucks so the four of us headed down to my stand to start tracking my buck. I showed them the blood trail and we all followed it all the way to the last place I had seen the buck. When we got to that point we started moving very slowly across a steep hillside. We were all expecting to get to the thicket and find a dead buck but as we approached I stopped in my tracks as I could see my buck bedded, still alive, about 30 yds below us. I could not believe this buck was still alive over 8 hours after I had shot him. All I could see was his head and the top of his neck. I drew back and settled my pin right at the top of his neck and released. Like a thread through a needle my arrow zipped cleanly through the brush and found its mark, whack! The buck jumped up and tore through the thicket almost taking a nose dive at one point but managed to stay up and running. Now I’m just completely amazed that this buck has taken two arrows and is still going. The four of us walked down to where the buck was laying and continued on the blood trail. We fallowed it through the thicket until I spotted the buck up ahead about 100 yds laying down between two trees. Its head was still up but its nose was only a couple inches off the ground. At this point I’m sure the buck is done for and will be dead in a matter of seconds. As we were standing there feeling confident that we would soon be packing another deer out we heard voices off in the distance. I must have the worst luck in the world because the voices we were hearing were coming from hikers coming up a hiking trail that my buck was laying less than 10 yds from. Yes of all places for this buck to go down it had to be right next to a hiking trail. Now we are all worried that if the buck doesn’t expire then the hiker might bump it so the decision was made that I need to make a quick stalk and put another arrow in the buck before the hikers got closer. I ripped my boots off and started my stalk in my socks trying to be as quiet and quick as possible. As I circled around below the buck I could hear voices below me and above me. I couldn’t believe my horrible luck. I have been down to this trail several times in the past two years while hiking around and scouting but have never seen a soul on the trail. Of course the one time I have a buck down there are people coming up the trail and down the trail. I looked up the hill as I approached the buck and I could see Justin waving his arms in a panic signaling me to shoot the buck as the hikers were quickly approaching. I got to 10 yds from the downed buck undetected. The buck was broadside and I expected to put another arrow in it and for it to not move. Boy was I wrong! As my arrow passed through both lungs and center punched the heart the buck jumped up and turned running right at me. I almost ended up on my butt as I jumped out of the way as the buck passed by at arms reach. This is when things went from bad to about as bad as it can get. The buck charged down the hill on its death run directly at four women hikers coming up the trail about 100 yds away. As the women started screaming and hiding behind trees the buck piled up literally 10 to 20 yds from the four women. The forest came alive with chaos as the women were screaming in confusion, one yelling “its shot, its shot”! “Who shot him?” one of the women yelled. I held my bow up and let the women know that I was the shooter. One of them yelled back “ why would you shoot it? Its not even deer season!” I informed the lady that it was indeed archery deer season and I was 100% legal. All four women were screaming and crying hysterically. I couldn’t believe what was unfolding before my eyes as I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet! At this point is when one of the women really lost it. She started screaming at me at the top of her lungs F@#K YOU, F@#K YOU, F@#K YOU! You @$$HOLE! It was insane chaos as all four women were screaming and cussing calling me a murderer along with every name in the book! The most aggressive of the four women was approaching me as she was screaming so mad she picked up a stick and threw it at me but was so angry that she had no accuracy in her throw and the stick hit the ground a measly 10 ft in front of her. She was about 10 to 15 yds from me when she picked up a rock the size of a softball and I informed/warned her that I had a side arm. She didn’t come any closer and didn’t throw the rock but continued to act very unladylike and spew all kinds of nastiness out her mouth. After this went on for the longest 10 minutes of my life the women finally moved on still screaming and crying. I understand that this was probably a very traumatic experience for these women and I felt HORRIBLE about that but their behavior was very uncalled for and out of control! Throughout all of this I tried to keep my cool and I think I did a pretty good job of it only snapping back at the women once or twice. Justin and Harvey showed great restraint as well, especially Harvey who never said a peep during all the chaos. Poor little Dillon was pretty shook up, that was a lot for a 11 year old to experience. Once the forest quieted down we quickly moved the deer away from the trail, took some quick pictures before skinning, quartering and starting the pack out. After the LONG pack out we reached the truck to find a sheriff deputy waiting for us. He told us that “some psycho woman had called 911 to report us murdering a deer”. The deputy thought the situation was quite amusing and after checking our licenses and inspecting our deer he went on his way. Between the buck taking so long to die and the psycho women this was by far the worst hunting experience I have ever had and not the way I would have ever imagined how taking my 1st archery coues would be. This is partly why its taken such a long time for me to finally share the story with all of you. HUGE thanks to Justin, Harvey and little Dillon for being there and helping with the pack out. You guys were life savers! As always thanks for reading my story and thanks to Amanda for such an amazing site where we can share our experiences, good and bad! -Tracy Even after all the chaos Dillon was still excited about seeing two bucks taken in one day.

Great buck! I'd shoot that buck on the first day let alone that last evening. Congrats! -Tracy

WOOHOO!!! Man you guys did good! Way to go Ryan. Great write up and some really good pics. I'm glad your dad was able to fill his tag as well. Congrats again! -Tracy

What a magnificent beast of a buck! Absolutley amazing! -Tracy

+1 Great buck man! There are still many of us out there trying to break that magical 100" mark. If that was lowering your standards then I'd love to see the "big boy" you were after. Congrats on a beautiful stud of a buck and a definate monster in most eyes! -Tracy

Way to go Josh! You are bringing them boys up right. They'll be pradator calling masters by the time they turn 10. Congrats! -Tracy

Great buck Jim! Thats a buck not many of us could pass up either. Great character! I love what I call the "flame look", how the times are kind of wavey as the go up. Beautiful trophy! Huge Congrats! -Tracy

Absolute STUD!!! Congrats on a great buck Amanda! I'm jealous. -Tracy

WOOOWEE!!! A lion, a coues and a carp? Now thats a week that'll be hard to top! Great write up! You must still be floating from such an amazing week. A huge congrats to all of you on some fine trophies! -Tracy

Holy smokes Josh!! I would love to have a day like that let alone just a morning! And to think you let some walk. Congrats on a great morning and one that will be hard to beat! -Tracy

Killing a bear has been something I have wanted to do so bad for so long and it finally happened Saturday evening. After finding a canyon last year during bear season that was loaded with bear sign I went back last April and set a couple cameras. At first I was getting an abundance of bear pictures but as it got later in the summer the bears were getting less and less frequent but were still there. A week before the season I set my tree stand up and had high hopes of killing my 1st bear. Saturday morning I sat my stand until noon with no luck and then climbed down, retrieved the SD cards from my cameras and hiked out of the canyon back to my truck where I looked over the pictures on my laptop. I was very disappointed to see that no bears had come through since I set my stand up. Maybe I made too much noise or got too much of my sent around in there when I set up the stand. I’m not sure but I felt like it was pointless to sit the stand. I drove back to my dad’s cabin where I picked up my girlfriend Angie. We headed back to the canyon to try to glass up a bear. After doing some predator calling we hiked to the edge of the canyon. We made our way to a good glassing point and I set my rifle down and took off my pack to get my 15’s out. As I was about to get into my pack I looked down into the canyon and spotted a bear moving across and opening about 400 yds out. I immediately got excited and told Angie “bear, bear” as I was pointing into the canyon. Angie saw the bear right as it went back into the thicket of oaks. It looked HUGE! The bear was moving toward us but to our right. We were on top of a cliff that dropped down about 300 to 400 ft into a forest of oak trees. Looking down into the trees from above was like looking into a thick sea of broccoli. I knew that the odds of me seeing the bear again were very slim since it went into the thick trees so I told Angie to stay put and watch below her and I was going to move down the canyon and try to glass from a different angle. I moved down a few hundred yards stopping and glassing as I went. After about 15 minutes with out seeing the bear again I was thinking that I was happy to have just seen a bear. As I looked down into the canyon I started hearing a bunch of thrashing around in the trees below me and to my right. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw a bunch of birds flying out of the trees. I knew I needed to get a better look so I got up and moved very quickly around some brush to get a better look. My eyes scanned the thick trees trying to find the source of the sound when they caught a brown patch at the top of the trees about 300 yds away. It was the bear! It had climbed up about 20 to 25 ft to the top of an oak tree and was feasting on the acorns. Only its head and mid section were sticking out of the top of the tree. I dropped down to get a good rest on some rocks, flipped out the bipod on my .270 and settled the crosshairs just above the bears shoulders. I squeezed the trigger, boom! After recovering from the recoil I looked up to see the bear falling from the tree. I heard it falling through the tree branches and then the thud of it hitting the ground below. I jumped to my feet and screamed “WOOOOHOOOO!!!! I smoked him!!!!” I yelled to Angie who was still sitting a couple hundred yds down the canyon that I had got him and to grab my pack and to come to me. She came quickly and we had a short celebration. I knew the bear was done for because we heard the death moans. I called my dad at his cabin and told him that I didn’t have time for details but I had just shot a bear and I needed help asap! He said he was on his way so I got ready to go look for my bear. I put an orange hat on so Angie could see me and she stayed up top to guide me as I climbed down a steep crevice and tried to work my way to the bear. Once I got down into the thick jungle of oaks I knew it was going to be almost impossible to find it. After looking for about and hour I got extremely lucky and walked right up on my bear right as it got dark. I was so happy to have found it! It was a beautiful red colored sow. I was a little disappointed that it was a sow but still extremely happy to have my 1st bear! I had finally done it! I never saw any cubs with her but while gutting her I was still happy to see that she hadn’t produced any milk confirming no cubs. My dad arrived shortly after and I met him almost at the top and we climbed back down in. The terrain was so nasty and steep with boulders the size of small cars we decided it was too dangerous to try to pack her out in the dark. After partially skinning her to cool the meat we hung her in a tree, marked it on the GPS and headed out. My dad, Angie and myself returned in the morning and found an easier and safer way down into the canyon. Once we made our way to the bear we got it to a flat spot, took pictures, and started the pack out. The three of us didn’t get the bear back to the truck until almost 1:00 in the afternoon. Bears are the heaviest most dense dead weight I have ever packed out. It was hard work but worth every drop of sweat and every burning muscle. I was so glad that my dad and Angie were there to experience all this with me and HUGE thanks to both of them for all the help and packing out! Thanks for reading my story and thanks to Amanda for a great site where we can share our passion with each other! -Tracy Angie and I. My dad and I. Me and my trophy.