Kansas Man Surprised with Size of Big Buck

During the fall of 2021, I had two bucks on my hunting property that had great potential, but they needed to mature a little more. One was a 6x7, and the other a typical 10-pointer. Eventually, a mature 8-pointer showed up during mid-October and started pushing all the younger bucks out. I know from experience that if 3- or 4-year-old bucks get pushed around too much, they will likely look for another “core” area to call their own.

I decided to make this bully 8-pointer my target buck. On the evening of Halloween, I slipped into a tree and caught the bully pushing does around. After rubbing a tree and making a scrape, he started heading my way. I knew right where he was going to go and the range. When he got close enough, I drew my bow and put my pin right behind his front shoulder.

When the shot went off, my arrow hit him perfect. The buck didn’t go 10 yards before flipping over backwards and hitting the ground right beside the glowing nock of the arrow that was stuck in the ground. It was nice to be able to trick this guy and get my first Halloween buck. After notching that tag, I was curious if I would get the treat of the other two bucks coming back to my property and making it their core area.

It didn't take long before the other two bucks with great potential showed back up. And they stayed in the area until February of 2022. I was hoping to find their sheds, but they must have gone on to a neighboring property and dropped. Even though I didn’t find their sheds, I was excited to know that they made it through the previous hunting season. I was looking forward to seeing if they would return during the fall of 2022.

In early spring, I put out some 30-06 brand deer mineral along the edge of a cornfield and didn’t get much action right away. I placed a camera on the 30-06 and a different camera in the corner of the cornfield, where a lot of deer transition through. Sometime in June, I got my first photo of a buck transitioning through the corner of the cornfield that already had a good start in growing his new rack. The buck had character and appeared that he was going to grow splits on his brows. I thought to myself: Could this be the 6x7 buck from last year?

Hoping the answer was yes, I quickly went in to freshen up the 30-06 mineral, and within a week he showed up on the mineral and had put on quite a bit more antler! At that time, I could tell for sure that it was the 6x7, due to some antler character that carried over. I was shocked at how much this guy had put on, and I thought he could even break the magical 200-inch mark if he continued putting on antler. The big velvet buck continued to hit the 30-06 for a while but eventually disappeared. I didn’t get any more pictures of him at this location.

Knowing that bucks like to get in bachelor groups and normally like to feed in beans throughout the summer, I started looking at a different part of the farm in attempt to find the 6x7 buck. I also remembered that I had a mineral lick at a different spot the previous year that the 6x7 seemed to frequent. The spot where the 6x7 used frequently the previous year also had beans across the road to the north and the east.

I thought that location might be where he was bedding most of the time. So, I took some corn over and placed a cellular camera on it as soon as I could. Within a few hours of putting the corn out, the buck showed up! This told me that he was bedding close. Later that afternoon, before dark, he returned with two other bucks. One was the typical 10-pointer from last year, and the other was a typical 8-point that had a split brow.

The area the bucks were using is thick and has several rubs in there from previous seasons. I realized at that moment I’d located my target buck and had a legitimate chance to kill him. It was time to develop a plan. When the next Red Moon rolled around, I went down one Saturday morning early to see if I could catch any bucks transitioning out of the beans and going back into the bedding area. I did catch a few bucks with big racks heading to the bedding area, but it was too dark to confirm that it was them, even though I was confident it was.

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So, the next evening, I took my QuietKat ebike down to the farm. I rode the bike onto the property to an observation point, where I could melt into a cornfield and hopefully catch the bucks coming out to feed. As the sun was getting close to setting, the typical 8-point and 10-point both showed up. I thought surely the 6x7 would be with them. And about a minute later, he appeared. I had already been watching and videoing the other two bucks with an Athlon spotting scope but shifted to the giant as soon as he appeared. My jaw about dropped, because at that point, I could tell that this buck definitely would score over 200 inches.

I continued to film all of them until it got dark, and then I slipped out of there. I came back as soon as I could and placed a trail camera on the location where the bucks came out of the bedding area, which was different from where they entered the bedding the previous day.

I never did get their picture there. It seemed that the bucks used many different trails to slip in and out of the bedding, since the beans pretty much wrap around it. I put a camera on a location that was the only way for them to transition from the bedding area to the beans without having to cross the river; it started capturing the bucks quite a bit. As time went on, and the bucks started getting close to shedding velvet, they started to separate. At this time, the giant started using this area to get to the beans.

A serious bowhunter and good friend of mine, Tom Lott, told me that this buck was really going to lose inches when he shed his velvet. As soon as I got the first pic of the buck hard-horned, I sent it to Tom and his reply was simply: “Tiny Timmy.” I started to second guess what I thought the buck would score, but I just wasn’t seeing what Tom was seeing. I was planning to do whatever I needed to get this buck killed. I felt confident that some of the hunters that were on neighboring properties knew about him and likely had trail cam photos of him. I already had a few stands hung and just needed a north wind to hunt the stand where I thought that I had the best chance to kill the giant.

Finally, opening day of season arrived. I was talking to a couple of friends that knew about my situation. One told me that we weren’t supposed to get a north wind for another week, and the other friend said that I should just grab my muzzleloader and go make it happen. Knowing that the Red Moon was coming in two days, I knew that I needed to make something happen before one of the other hunters put their tag on this incredible buck. That conversation got me thinking, and that evening I developed a plan to take my muzzleloader out and set up on a hillside where it wraps around. I thought that this terrain change could affect how the wind was flowing at that location. I quickly shot my muzzleloader at home and got all my gear together to just slip in on the hillside to see if I could get the wind in my favor.

I wasn’t sure how far back I would have to sit, which is why I took my muzzleloader. Even though I’m a hardcore bowhunter, I knew that a buck of this caliber doesn’t come around very often, and I would rather have my tag on him than someone else.

On Wednesday evening, I road my QuietKat in close to where I wanted to set up, and I started looking for a place that would work. All the while, I was praying that the wind would be in my favor. I ended up finding a spot next to a tree that the wind was blowing more east than south-southeast, which I hoped would keep him from smelling me if he transitioned from the bedding area to beans.

I also made sure I had my Ozonics HR500 unit blowing ozone in the direction of the wind, and I used some RAW Calming Scent to help cover me if I had any swirling winds that might push my scent down to the trail below. Once I set up all my camera gear and broke down a few branches that were in the way, I checked the distance and found it to only be 40 yards. I thought to myself: I should have just brought my bow!

But honestly, my shooting window was so narrow, that I knew I wouldn’t have been able to pull off killing him with my bow — especially while capturing it on video.

Since the shooting lane was so narrow, I knew that I had to have everything ready as soon as I noticed any movement. Two main things had to happen: I needed to turn on my video equipment and be fast about getting the gun up. As the evening sit went on, I sat with my gun on a monopod and the buttstock resting on my bino-carrier on my chest. This would allow me to be as efficient as I could be at getting the rifle shouldered.

When it was getting close to dark, I caught movement. I quickly turned my cameras on as fast as I could and turned my head back to the shooting lane. Immediately, I recognized that it was the giant and threw my gun up, cocked it, and stopped the buck. As he was staring up trying to figure out what he heard, I settled the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed off the shot . . .

The buck swirled around and ran back in the direction he came from! I reviewed the footage in slow motion and knew that it was a lethal hit. I simply slipped out of there and called for help. A few co-workers showed up to help track him, and it didn’t take long. The buck only ran 35-40 yards.

We did the recovery video and took a few photos before tagging him and loading him up. I also grabbed my trail camera, which was on video mode, that I had monitoring that trail. I was hoping it captured him walking through there before getting to my window. As luck would have it, the camera did capture him, followed by a small buck that I had never seen. Amazingly, the camera also caught the giant running back by before dropping. The camera also had audio turned on, so you can even hear my shot.

Once I got home, my family and a few friends were there to check him out and celebrate. The next morning, I snapped a photo of me trying to put my index finger and thumb around his base. I wasn’t even close to touching, and I couldn’t resist sending it to my buddy Tom with the words, “Tiny Tim” and a question mark. It made me laugh out loud, and at that point I let Tom know that the giant’s name was now officially Tiny Tim.

My buck ended up scoring 230 4/8 gross. He has 23 scorable points, which made another friend think that I should change the way I spell his name. So, now my giant’s name is “Tiney Tim” — because he has so many tines! This is the second buck that I have shot within the past four years that has scored over 200 inches. The first buck was a 209-incher with a 9-inch drop tine that I killed with my bow on my personal property. Both bucks were self-filmed, and you can watch the hunts for free on a show called Team 200 TV.