The Big Oaks Buck
by: Robert Muncie
It all happened so fast that I still hadn’t taken it fully in. My muzzleloader was still smoking and 35 yards away kicking on the ground was a nice 9 point buck. One minute I’m doing a pre hunt interview on the video camera and the next I’m pulling the trigger on a great public land buck. How did I get here?
Each year I take a trip to Big Oaks Wildlife Refuge with my good friend Zach Potter. It’s our annual fall outing during deer season. Big Oaks is a reclaimed military base that is a draw to hunt facility. To say it’s large is an understatement. It covers over 50,000 acres and at times seems much larger. The hunts are drawn and then each hunter is required to call in on a set day to pick the unit they wish to hunt. They’ve divided the park into several smaller units to better manage the hunters and game. This year we were able to get a good unit up near the front that we would share with 6 others. The unit covered a little over a square mile and was known to hold good bucks.
We arrived at our hotel the night before and grabbed some dinner and then headed down to Big Oaks to see what was moving after dark. It’s always fun to watch the deer around the entrance and this night did not disappoint as we saw several does and a couple of decent bucks. That brought our blood to a boil so we headed back to our room for a night of rest. In years past we had always been drawn for an archery hunt, but this year we were drawn for a shotgun and muzzleloader hunt so I had decided the Thompson Center Omega was the right gun for the trip. We arrived at the office the next morning a few hours before first light for our safety briefing and check in. Once that was out of the way we headed to a spot we had picked out to park. Zach and I had spent the last two weeks studying ariel and topo maps of the area since there is no pre scouting allowed. We had found a couple of pinch points in the woods and even a small saddle that appeared to be a great ambush site. As deer hunting would have it there was a truck parked right where Zach had wanted to enter the woods so we had to go to plan B. We had found a nice ridge that bordered what looked to be a bedding area on the maps and it was about 200 yards further in from where I had picked for my stand location so Zach decided to set up there.
We gathered our gear and headed in. Walking into a large section of woods, in the dark, that you are unfamiliar with is always interesting. You have to rely on your map reading and sense of direction to get you, almost blindly, to your predetermined spots. We found what we believed to be my stand location and even in the dark it looked like buck central. Zach carried on a little further back and up the hill to watch the ridge coming out of that bedding area. Both of us felt great about the pre work we had done on the computer and liked our chances of seeing deer. As the sun started to rise my excitement grew even more. I had long shooting lanes and could see a good distance in every direction. I should see the deer before he see’s me. Once I had enough light I turned on the video camera and began my pre hunt conversation. During this time I decided to blow on a new grunt tube made for me by Darin Blackburn of DB custom calls. I made a short series of grunts and then settled back in to finish my camera talk. A few minutes into that I heard a noise and glanced back to my left and to my surprise there was a nice buck. His head was down and he was on a mission. He must have heard the grunts and was coming in to see what buck had dared come into his area. The hunter in me took over and I settled the crosshairs of my scope on him before I realized that I had no camera man today and it was on me to get into the right filming position.
The deer was still 100 yards out but closing fast and coming just to my left. I positioned the camera to where I thought he would go and then made sure I wasn’t going to be in the frame as well. Now I just had to wait for him to walk into my shooting lane. Within a few seconds he was 35 yards out and behind a tree. Two steps and this guy was mine. Well he did just that and cleared the tree. I did a doe bleep with my mouth and stopped him. For the first time he looked up and in my direction just in time to hear my muzzleloader go off. The impact was tremendous and knocked him off his feet, he slid back and into the tree behind him. The smoked cleared and he kicked a few more times, and then nothing. The shot had gone in through the shoulder and taken out both lungs.
Since it was only 8:20 and my hunting partner was a mere 200 yards away, I decided to stay put in my stand and wait for a bit. After all my deer wasn’t going anywhere and didn’t need to be tracked. I finished up a few things on camera and then went about packing a few items up and sending a few text messages to the hunting crew. Gotta start the bragging right away, you know! As
My hunting partner, Zach, found his way over to my location a few minutes later. We still had a good drag ahead of us so we started on that and made our way back to the truck for some pictures and celebrating. There aren’t many things more enjoyable than making your way back up to the check station with a nice buck on the hitch haul to show off. The buck wasn’t a giant by most standards but he scored in the mid 120’s, and for a public land draw hunt that is a nice deer.
There are a lot of nice bucks that make their home on public land. They can be hard to hunt and crafty. I guess that’s how they get to be trophy size deer with all the hunting pressure they experience. If you put in a little time doing your home work on the internet and read over topo and ariel maps this will increase your odds of seeing a good buck. Look for saddles and bedding areas and for pinch points that will funnel deer past a certain area. You may need to walk a little further then the other guys, but in doing so you might just find yourself in the path of a great buck. Another benefit to these hunts are in many cases the tags are separate and often don’t count against your regular buck tags. This is the case at Big Oaks. The buck I harvested that day was taken with a military tag and still allowed me to hunt another buck on my regular tags.
Hunting public land bucks can be hard and at times frustrating, but with a little preparation, some hard work, and a bit of luck, you might just find yourself in the right spot at the right time. That is when the pay off comes and the buck you’ve been dreaming about walks past you.
