Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013 - 6

son brought a bumper acorn crop.
Red oak acorns were so plentiful that
it actually made walking through
the woods difﬁcult. I focused on the
Lumpy-Throat Buck, hunting him
only during the ﬁrst two weeks in November, a time when I felt he would be
most vulnerable. I hunted him hard,
but as in the previous two seasons, I
never saw him. My respect for the old
buck was increasing with each passing
season. And I also knew that with each
passing season he would continue to
sharpen his senses and would be that
much more difﬁcult to harvest, or even
see for that matter.
The winter of 2010 was extremely
mild and, coupled with that heavy
acorn crop, was rather easy on wildlife.
And I was about to learn just how a
heavy acorn crop and a mild winter
affects antler development.
During the spring of 2010, I had
collected several sets of sheds from
other bucks, but none from the LumpyThroat Buck. I covered a lot of territory, but it seemed that I just couldn’t
luck into those sheds. If he had made it
through hunting season, then I felt that
he would have easily made it through
the mild winter, especially with the
abundant supply of acorns.
I began hanging trail cameras in late
July in hopes of catching a photo of him
to prove my suspicion that he was still
alive. Once again, under the cover of
darkness, he showed up on one of my
cameras. And boy was he impressive!
He had his biggest set of antlers since
I began pursuing him. I thought his
rack to be in the neighborhood of 140
Boone & Crockett Club points. Also
surprising was that he had grown an
extra point on his left side and was now
a 9-point. And there below his throat
6

was the big lump. I now had three
years worth of trail camera photos of
the old buck, and every one of those
photos had been taken under the cover
of darkness.
The 2010 season would be my fourth
year hunting the old buck. When you
hunt a particular deer for this many
seasons and have so many memories
of him, the level of respect you feel
for that particular animal is immense.
I knew that his nocturnal tendencies
would make him extremely difﬁcult to
see, let alone get an arrow in him.
I had several stands set up and
one was near where I had found his
shed in 2007. The area consisted of
extremely dense mountain laurel that
skirted around a small stream drainage
that funneled deer movement from
one side of the drainage to the other.
The funnel spanned several hundred
yards in width, though, because of the
size of the area. This funnel gave me
somewhat of a starting point for at
least seeing any deer that might pass
through the area. Getting them within
20 yards would be another challenge.
In big woods areas, funnels can be rare
and difﬁcult to locate, but I felt that I
had one here. A west wind was needed
at this location, though.
Another stand was located about a
mile away at the location where I had
gotten the majority of the trail camera
photos of the buck during the past
three seasons. Even though I felt this
was the buck’s core home range, it was
a difﬁcult area to hunt, because of the
unstable wind conditions that persisted
throughout the area because of the
topography. I accessed the stand from
a small drainage that ran in a westerly
direction that led me to the top of the
mountain. I needed a northwest wind
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Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013

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