Editor’s Note: Do you remember when you took a buck with a bow that made that time an exciting hunt? This week some well-known archers are sharing their adventures of bagging some of their most memorable bow bucks.

Brad Harris Bags a Scrape Buck

Brad Harris, a longtime outdoorsman for several decades, from Neosho, Missouri, has produced hunting videos and been featured in numerous TV shows.

Once I hunted in Iowa where at that time I’d never hunted before. But I’d looked at the land on a topo map and pinpointed numbers of hardwood drainages emptying into cornfields on the land we planned to hunt. I searched for fingers of wood that led to cornfields, providing access routes for the bucks in and out of the fields. I also talked with the local game warden and some friends of mine who knew the region. Each of them felt I could take a nice buck in this area with my bow.

From my scouting, I pinpointed one of these wooded fingers that had four trails merging at one junction at the bottom of a hollow. All four trails came off little ridges. I had a river at my back, and the wind blew from the trail toward the river. I knew if I took a stand at the junction of the trails, the wind would carry my scent out over the river and not into the area I wanted to hunt. I also found a huge scrape there. On one side of the woodlot was a five-strand barbed-wire fence and a small creek on the other side. Although the deer could jump the fence or the creek, I knew deer usually wouldn’t cross these types of barriers. I could tell some good-sized bucks used this funnel area.  During the rut, this spot probably would have produced many deer. However, we were hunting during the post-rut.

I set up my stand in mid-morning and went to hunt that same afternoon. Just before dark, I spotted a nice buck coming out of a thicket and moving down one of the trails. I could tell by the direction he traveled he’d pass by me at 60 yards – just out of bow range. However, I knew a grunt call would give me a chance to stop the buck and take him. But the buck never acknowledged the first 15 grunts I made on the call. I was frustrated because the buck wouldn’t respond. The deer, that was feeding on acorns, seemed to care nothing about my calling.

For about five minutes, I tried grunting loudly, next softly, and then changed the reed set-up on my grunt call to grunt with a higher pitch and then a lower pitch. But no call got the buck’s attention, although I did everything I knew to get the buck to respond. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the buck lifted his head and looked in my direction. I grunted a little louder than before. Apparently, that call hit a nerve in the buck. The hair on his back rose to attention, and his legs stiffened. He walked stiff-legged and bristled up toward me right to the scrape, 18 yards from my tree stand.

Next, he worked the scrape, dug the scrape with his hooves, fought the bushes with his antlers, and urinated in the scrape. When he finished with the scrape, he walked straight to my stand and turned broadside to me at 14 yards, before quartering away. I took the shot. My arrow hit in the middle of the buck’s ribs, traveled forward, and exited just ahead of the front rib on his left side. The buck grossed 147 on Boone & Crockett – the best deer I’d ever taken with a bow at that time.

Terry Rohm’s Rut Buck Bagged with a Bow                   

Editor’s Note: Terry Rohm, today of Covington, Georgia, and Director of Marketing of Tink’s Outdoor Products, has long been well-known in the outdoors for his bowhunting prowess. 

I was hunting in Ohio, a place known for its big bucks and its shotgun-only gun season at that time, which might mean that there might be mature bucks there. We hunted small patches of wood. On this day, we found a large number of rubs on trees about the diameter of Coca-Cola bottles or bigger. Corn and alfalfa fields surrounded these woodlots. I took a stand on a large narrow ridge between the crops on which the deer fed and a thick-cover area where they bedded.

Because the rut was occurring in this area, I put Tinks 69 deer lure downwind of me. I’d positioned my stand to enable me to shoot to a scrape the buck had made near two, large cedar trees where the buck had rubbed his antlers. In the late afternoon, the buck appeared, apparently trying to find does. He came toward the scrape to check it. Once I spotted the buck at about 60 yards, I watched him paw the ground, work a branch hanging over the pawed-up area with his antlers, his eyes, nose, and mouth, and beat up a tree nearby, creating a new scrape. Then he headed back to the older scrape.

As the buck came to me, I never had a clear shot. He moved into the old scrape and worked it again by pawing the ground, hooking bushes, and urinating in the scrape. But I still didn’t have a clear shot. The buck walked away from the scrape, moved toward my stand, and quartered away from me. Without warning, he stopped and looked in the direction from where he’d come, presenting a shot. My arrow entered the buck behind his last rib and exited out his chest. The buck scored 141 points on Boone & Crockett.

Expert Guidebooks on BowHunting Deer: Best Sellers

How to Hunt Deer Up Close with Bows, Rifles, Muzzleloaders and Crossbows
To be more successful as a deer hunter, learn all you can about the animal, the wind, the temperature and the techniques required to get in close.

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John E. Phillips also shares his own deer stories and hunting tips from 50 years of experience.

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Many deer hunters have told me: “I want a deer-hunting book with regular hunters who are just like me” and “I want a deer-hunting book with the best advice from the best professional deer hunters in the nation”. 

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Whether you hunt private or public lands, you’ll find tips and tactics in this book from the Mossy Oak Pro Staff that will increase your odds for locating and taking the bucks of your dreams. 

If you’re serious about learning to hunt and take deer with a bow, if you’re looking for a different strategy that will help you identify and harvest big bucks, if you want to learn from your misses as well as from the shots that connect, and if you enjoy being in the great outdoors that the Good Lord has blessed us with, then this book is for you.

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Tomorrow: Eddie Salter & Mark Drury Hunt Bow Deer