ZERO- TO 150-BOONE AND CROCKETT POINT BUCKS IN THREE YEARS

The First 150-Point Buck

Editor's Note: By intensely managing deer for three years, Mark Drury, the creator of M.A.D. Calls and co-owner of Drury Outdoors Adventures saw the 2,100 acres of land he owned and leased go from having few if any shooter deer to producing 150-class bucks. His amazing story demonstrates what quality wildlife management can do for a deer herd when sportsmen willingly invest the time and money to produce better bucks. In 2001, Mark of St. Peters, Missouri, and his brother Terry Drury harvested five bucks that scored 150 or more Boone & Crockett points from property almost completely devoid of deer three years earlier. Could you do this on the lands where you hunt?

The Drurys harvested the first 150-class buck off their land during bow season after three years of management. "While sitting in a shooting house watching a green field at first light on opening morning of bow season, my nephew, Jared Lurk, told us that he'd watched a 1-year-old 6-point buck, two does and a monster buck feed right under where we'd hung a bow stand and a camera stand on the edge of the green field," Mark Drury recalls. "So, at lunch, Terry and I decided to hunt the spot where Jared had seen the big buck. We gave Jared the video camera and put him in the shooting house where he'd sat that morning. I got in the camera stand over the spot where the buck had entered the green field, and Terry prepared to take the buck with his bow."

The Drurys had spotted this buck the year before entering this field at the same spot. They already had decided before the season they wanted to bag this buck. So, they had hung a bow stand and a camera stand where the buck always had entered the green field. "We had found the sheds of this buck after the 2000 deer season, and the sheds scored 119 points on the B&C scale," Drury recalls. "Since the buck measured approximately 16 inches between the main beams, we decided we wanted to take him."

The buck came out of big brushy draw, walked through the rows of corn on the edge of the field and headed for the soybeans out in the field, just as he always had. The deer had approached the stand from about 80-yards away when he spotted a doe feeding right below Mark and Terry Drury. The buck charged toward the doe. When the buck got within 20 yards of the stand, Terry Drury drew his bow and released the arrow. The arrow struck behind the deer's front shoulder, puncturing his lung and liver. The next morning, when the hunters tracked the buck, they found that he only had traveled 150 yards from where he'd bedded-down the previous night. The Drury brothers realized that their management system and their willingness to wait to grow trophy bucks had paid off.

To learn more about Drury Outdoors Adventures, call (800) 990-9451, or go to www.druryoutdoors.com.

TOMORROW: THE SECOND 150-POINT BUCK