John's Journal...

How I Took the Buck that Nobody Else Could Take with Tad Brown, Michael Waddell, Preston Pittman, Troy Ruiz and Gary Sefton

Take a Shortcut Buck with Troy Ruiz

Click to enlargeEditor’s Note: Bucks of legend, those seldom seen and mostly nocturnal, that no one can take but that everyone is after have developed reputations of having almost-supernatural powers over the years. This week, we’ll learn how some of the nation's best deer hunters successfully have pitted their skills against the bucks with the big reputations.

Two different times when Troy Ruiz of Madison, Mississippi, came out of the woodClick to enlarges from hunting, he spotted a nice buck on a ridge top as he walked back to his vehicle. Although Ruiz tried to slip in close enough to get a shot at the buck with his bow, the deer always spotted him and vanished.

"I was hunting in Prentiss, Mississippi, in Jefferson Davis County," Ruiz, a well-known videographer for Mossy Oak, says. "The hunting pressure was heavy, and the area had been hunted with dogs. I tried hunting that buck early in the morning, late in the afternoon and even in the middle of the day. But I never could get a shot at him. I also knew I wasn't the only person hunting that deer because other hunters in the area had seen him."

The 8-point buck had a 17-inch-wide inside spread of the main beams. Even though many hunters wouldn't consider this buck a trophy, Ruiz knew he was really a nice buck for that section of Mississippi at the time. Ruiz continued to scout intensively, sure that the buck fed at night in a cornfield located about a mile away from the hillside where he'd always seen him. "Right below the hill, there was a 5- or a 6-year-old clearcut that had grown-up really thick," Ruiz explains. "I felt that the buck was feeding in the corn at night, staying in the clearcut during daylight hours and moving to the mountain to get a few acorns in the middle of the day. But I couldn't find a place to put my tree stand where I could get a shot at the buck."Click to enlarge

For the buck to go from the cornfield to the big thicket where it bedded, Ruiz knew the buck first had to cross a road. Then to take the shortest route, the buck had to come across a young clearcut before reaching that older clearcut. Someone had stacked-up a pile of logs to be hauled-off in a clearing at the end of the young cleClick to enlargearcut. Although Ruiz didn't see any well-defined deer trails, he decided to go to the corner of that clearcut, take a stand and wait on the buck. "I thought the deer might be cutting the corner of the young clearcut to get to the older one because the ground was more open where that log yard had been," Ruiz mentioned.  "I just believed that the deer had to walk that way."
The next morning before daylight Ruiz sneaked into the old log yard. Using a climbing tree stand, he went about 20-feet up a tree he'd picked out the previous day. "About 15 minutes after I'd been in my stand, I spotted a doe," Ruiz said.  "The doe came out into the old log yard, walked across the opening and continued to walk right under my stand."     Five minutes later, Ruiz heard a buck running in the distance.  As he watched the edge of the clearing, he saw the buck he wanted coming across the old log yard.  When the buck reached the halfway point of the log yard, he looked around for the doe. When the buck didn't see the other deer, the buck turned to walk in the direction from which he'd come.

"But then I whistled, and the buck turned around and started looking toward where the doe had gone," Ruiz explained. "I grunted at the deer, and he continued to come to me. When the buck was at 60 yards, I took the shot and dropped the buck." When Ruiz scouted the area after he'd downed the buck, he found a small creek nearby, bordering on the clearcut, that had helped to funnel the buck to him.  "I learned these deer weren't following a trail, they were only meandering through this region. Many times if you look at land, you can define the shortest route a buck can take from his feeding to his bedding area and locate the best stand sites.  I was hunting the buck in an area I'd never seen him in, while the other hunters were looking in the places where they'd spotted him before."

Tomorrow: Bag a Farmland Buck with Gary Sefton


Check back each day this week for more about "How I Took the Buck that Nobody Else Could Take with Tad Brown, Michael Waddell, Preston Pittman, Troy Ruiz and Gary Sefton"

Day 1: Tad Brown Removes the Hunting Pressure
Day 2: Hunt ‘Em Backwards with Michael Waddell
Day 3: Preston Pittman Hunts Little Places
Day 4: Take a Shortcut Buck with Troy Ruiz
Day 5: Bag a Farmland Buck Gary Sefton    

 

Entry 479, Day 4