“I didn’t recover the buck I first shot in 2014 for two years,” Dr. Travis Links of Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, says. While hunting private land, Links was surprised when a huge buck stepped out of the woods into an overgrown pasture. Actually, two bucks came out at the same time – a big 8 pointer and a monster 9 pointer.”

In the fading light, Links drew his bow back and made the shot. “I hit him high, and my arrow seemed to have gone below the spine and above any vital organs,” Links explains. “I picked up the blood trail and followed it until it ran out. The next morning I returned and took the nice 8 pointer I’d seen previously. But I was still looking for the huge 9 pointer I’d shot earlier.”

Links had trail-camera pictures of the big 9 pointer several times after he’d shot him. The buck was easily identifiable due to his rack and a scar on his right side where Links’arrow had hit. Links named him Scar. In 2015, Links saw more trail-camera photos of Scar. “Scar’s antlers didn’t explode in 2015 and still would score about mid-150s on Boone & Crockett https://www.boone-crockett.org/,” Links reports.

In 2016, Links had his trail cameras out, including on the edge of the field about 15 yards in front of his stand. “Another hunter, Nick Monier, pulled the trail-camera pictures,” Links remembers. “Nick called me and said, ‘We’ve got pictures of a big buck about 160 or 170 inches out in front of the stand we set-up.’ When I looked at the photos, I thought he was more a 180- to a 190-inch buck and named him Zeus.” Links’friend, A.J. Daigle, bulldozed brush and small trees in a field, 100-yards long and 50-yards wide, on the hunting property. Over the summer, the friends let that field grow up in native plants. Links had pictures of Zeus there in the afternoons and bedded down – not 20 feet from the trail camera.

“As soon as I saw those pictures, I planned to hunt Zeus immediately after work on Friday, October 6, from a lock-on tree stand set-up in a tree,” Links explains. “We’d put rice bran out too for the deer to eat.” Before Dr. Links left his chiropractic office, he had a lunch meeting with Daigle to review topo maps to determine the best route he could follow to his tree stand without spooking Zeus, particularly with a weird wind blowing from the northeast. “Normally, during the fall, the prevailing wind comes from the northwest,” Links explains. “A.J. and I strategized about where I should park and how to walk into the wind to reach my tree stand.”

Links navigated his way around a big briar patch that intersected the trail leading to his tree stand about 2:00 pm. “My stand faced southeast,” Links says. “With an 85-degree air temperature, I had my hunting clothes in a Scent Crusher https://www.scentcrusher.com/ Ozone Gear Bag and dressed just before I left the car.  But I didn’t see any deer.”

After a long, hot, boring sit, just as night crawled across the sky, Links spotted Zeus at the back end of that 100-yard field. Links had his Hunter Safety https://www.huntersafetyproducts.com/ tree stand harness on to catch him if he fell asleep, 23-feet high in a pin oak tree. He had his Hoyt https://hoyt.com/ Carbon Spyder Turbo bow with his arrow tipped with a Rage https://www.feradyne.com/rage-broadheads/  Hypodermic broadhead at the ready. He watched Zeus moving slowly and stopping to take bites of the new growth in the bulldozed field. “At 6:35 pm, I didn’t know if the big buck would reach me in time for me to be able to see my pin sight through my peep sight,” Links remembers.

Zeus moved into the field, looked at Links and walked straight toward him. Links knew that once Zeus came into the field, he’d take about 10 minutes to walk out in front of Links’stand. Links was concerned about the lack of light. Zeus stopped and browsed on a tree, giving Links only a head-on shot at 47 yards. Since Links had practiced shooting his bow out to 60-70 yards and at varying distances back to 10 yards, he was confident he could make a lethal hit.

“At 6:45 pm, I aimed in front of Zeus’s right front shoulder and came to full draw,” Links says. “My friend, Richard Campbell, who started the Hunters for the Hungry movement, and I shot our bows together every Tuesday at my office before Richard’s passing. He’d taught me about breathing techniques to stay calm, and I used those as my pin settled, and I released the arrow. I saw the arrow hit Zeus, but he’d dropped down like he planned to jump the string, spun around and run back the way he’d come.”

After making the shot, Links was shaking that pin oak tree hard enough to almost shake all the acorns off. He was worried he might pass out. Ten minutes later, Links carefully climbed down the tree and walked slowly to the spot where he’d arrowed the buck. Finding little blood, Links backed out, went to his dad, Bob Links’stand, called Daigle and said, “I shot Zeus,” and next called his wife. Links and his dad hugged and cried tears of joy. Then they climbed on a four-wheeler and returned to camp by 7:30 pm. Daigle was at camp and had shot a wild hog. Both of the Links and Daigle searched for the hog for about 1-1/2 hours but couldn’t find it.

“We drove back to the field where I’d shot Zeus,” Links recalls. “We had a German shepherd dog with us that could blood trail deer. A few steps from where I’d first seen the blood was at least a water bucket full of blood on the ground. We found Zeus not 40-yards away. I almost got a clean pass-through with my arrow. When we cleaned the deer, I saw I’d hit Zeus’s heart, both lungs and the liver – passing barely in front of the hindquarter. Once we discovered the deer, the three of us hugged and hollered. I’d never seen a buck this big before.”

When Links examined Zeus and saw a scar on his right side, he realized then that Zeus was actually Scar, who was now a 19 pointer.

To learn more about hunting for deer, check out John E. Phillips’ bowhunting books, available in Kindle, “Bowhunting Deer: Mossy Oak Pros Know Bucks and Bows” (http://amzn.to/1QGvdQx) and “Bowhunting Deer: The Secrets of the PSE Pros” (http://amzn.to/VBr1qW). You may have to copy and paste this link into your browser. (When you click on this book, notice on the left where Amazon says you can read 10% of the book for free).

Tomorrow: Larry Stanley Bags a Huge Iowa Blackpowder Buck Deer