This November in 2015 I was lucky enough to take down one of the biggest, if not the biggest that's ever been taken on the Frei farm. Here's the story...

Kaytee and I stayed up late probably watching some Adrenaline with Dad. Probably too late. We had gotten home from Sewing on the Red at Clint and Nina's which was Kaytee's first time. It was a lot of fun with a lot of good friends, stories and food. We ended up waking up later than we'd hoped and at 6AM when we were planning on leaving the house, we had just sat down for a cornbread breakfast.

We were finally on our way out closer to 6:30. We drove the fourwheeler to my stand while carrying chairs, my .270, and our packs. When we got to the field in the back of the 80, we saw 3 deer (it was slightly light out already, whoops). One of these deer had a pretty big body and we scared it away. The other two didn't seem to care about us as they were farther away. Dad had also dropped off a 20 lb. propane tank with a heater the day before. After 5 trips up to the top of the stand with all the things and throwing out the old rusty chair that was already in the stand, we were set up and ready to do some hunting.

Not long after loading my gun, Kaytee perked up and said there was a deer behind me! I was looking west and she, east. I hardly believed her since we were making so much noise so it took me a second to turn around. She said it was 50 yd away and that it looked like it had horns! It was still dark-ish out so it was tough to see in the swamp grass where it stood. I couldn't see it and then she said it put its head down and she couldn't see it anymore.

After looking that direction for 10-15 minutes I had kind of dismissed it as her making things up. It took her a little longer, but then I think she did the same. I had turned around and spotted a little nubby spike walking at us. We got the camera out and recorded him a bit. Then Andrew had gotten ready after working the whole night and was on his way out. He drove his truck up to my stand and handed us a walkie talkie.

About a half hour to 40 minutes and some hot chocolate later, Dad mentioned that there were some deer moving into the swamp from the 80 woods. Kaytee spotted him first and I recorded him. First it was a 6 pointer coming out, then a doe, and then a decent 14" spread 6 pointer who looked like he should've been a small eight. As those three made their ways across the swamp, I put down the camera and grabbed my gun. I believed Kaytee was pretty sincere when saying she saw a decently sized buck earlier that morning and I was hoping he'd hop up as these three walked through.

Sure enough, after the three deer had gone most of the way through the swamp, the trophy emerged from the swamp grass and started heading straight for the other 3. He was loping in the way deer do through tall grass. I hardly had time to aim as he was headed straight behind an oak with almost all its leaves still on. I remember aiming an inch or two in front of the front shoulder as he was headed to the right and quartering slightly away from me. I shot, and you could immediately see him drop to the ground. He got back up and ran behind the tree.

We kept a close eye around the sides of this thick tree blocking our view, but never saw him emerge from the edges. We updated everyone of our status and that it was a pretty darned big buck. After 20 minutes, Kaytee and I went down to check it out. We found some good blood in the swamp grass and then probably 20-40 yards from the shot, he was lying right in the swamp grass. After reaching 12 when counting the points, I was really excited, and couldn't wait to show people. The horns were also really massive indicating a pretty old deer.

Check out the pictures of our success!

by Ethan