Halls Creek Articles

The "Basher" Buck

We first saw this deer at the end of the season in Missouri in 2003. He was a magnificent main frame 10 that would easily go in the upper 140's. "Basher" had long main beams and had a "high" orientation to his antlers. We named him the "basher" because he would always bash his antlers into any buck around. He wasn't necessarily fighting he was just a bully. He would run all of the other deer out of the field. It was the second rut in Missouri and he came to a field, that attracts a large amount of does in the cold weather. We saw him one time that year and he was not sighted again until the rut of 2004.

He Must Be Nocturnal

It was a cold clear morning on November 12, 2004 when we saw the basher buck for the second time. He was chasing does between a bedding area and the same field that we saw him in last season. He was more beautiful than 2003… and had he ever put on some mass and tine length. It had almost been a full year since we had last seen the buck. We weren't even sure if he had lived through the last deer season. We never found his sheds and we never got any trail camera shots of the buck either. We concluded he must have spent most of the rest of the year in another area or he was totally nocturnal. But like many bucks he just can't resist chasing estrous does in the peak-breeding season, and he was up on his feet in broad daylight. We were bow hunting with clients later that week and we were never able to see the buck again.

A Thanksgiving to Remember

It was the day after Thanksgiving and we were filming an archery hunt with a client for our upcoming Halls Creek Whitetails video. We happened to be hunting the same area where we last saw the "basher" buck. It was a warm windy day following two days of cold snowy weather. The area was hit with five inches of snow and ice the day before Thanksgiving and remained cold for another day. We had a great feeling about the day, because we felt the deer would be up feeding after the bad weather had subsided. We try to hunt the areas where the does concentrate for feeding and bedding. This time of year (rut and post rut) we feel like we have a very good chance of seeing mature bucks checking for estrous does in these areas.

Our afternoon stand location was about 30 yards off of the edge of a clover field and adjacent to an oak ridge with acorns all over the ground. We settled in for the hunt around 1:30 in the afternoon. The wind kept changing and we were concerned about deer smelling us. It was slightly overcast with strong winds. But it was a beautiful day to be in the deer woods. We started seeing does around 3pm in the woods behind us and in the field in front of us. We observed a tremendous narrow racked buck, that would probably score in the mid 150" range. We really wanted to harvest this buck because of his unique rack. He chased some does right under our tree. He had a lot of mass and had a sort of "twisted" rack with several kickers and stickers off of his main frame. We named him the "cork screw" buck. ("Cork screw" was harvested the next day by another hunter.) Unfortunately he stayed strait away from our archer and the deer never presented a good broad side shot. It wasn't long and the large 15 pointer got our wind and bounded off, white-flag flashing through the trees. Our shooter was devastated; he was so close to getting a shot at a giant whitetail only to see the monster bound out of bow range.

Luck Comes Our Way

Within minutes we saw a huge buck out in front of us about 150 yards away. I put the binoculars on him and couldn't believe my eyes. It was the "Basher" buck. He was bullying every deer in the field, bucks and does. He would lay his ears back and run all of the other deer out of the field. It didn't take him long to start working his way closer to us. He was chasing does and bucks indiscriminately in front of our stand about 50 yards away. He chased two deer into the woods right under our tree. He came to the edge of the woods and presented a quartering away broadside shot at about 30 yards. The archers' arrow flew true and the buck piled up 70 yards from us in the middle of the field.

We were thrilled to finally get the basher buck that was so rarely seen. When we approached the animal it was clear that he had added a lot of points to his 10-point main frame. The Basher had 13 scorable points including a split brow tine and measured 154" gross.

Management Pays Off

Halls Creek is a whitetail outfitter in Central Missouri. Halls Creek has excellent guided whitetail hunts for mature trophy deer. The area in Central Missouri is known for its world class hunting opportunities. The staff at Halls Creek has been intensively managing whitetails for the past 9 years on their owned and leased properties. They offer first class accommodations, meals and one-on-one guide service. Their clients have taken over 50 bucks that have scored in excess of 150" in the last 3 seasons. Hunters have harvested 16 bucks that have measured over 170" in that same time frame. Hunters at Halls Creek enjoy a 96.55% success ratio on bagging mature whitetail bucks.

This hunt, as well as the "cork screw" hunt can be seen on the upcoming Halls Creek Hunting Video for 2005. Visit www.hallscreek.com for additional information.

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