Big Buck 411 Blog

Proactive

Proactive

By Mike Handley

Longtime Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda once quipped there are three kinds of people in this world: people who make it happen, people who watch what happens, and people who wonder what happened.

As of last deer season, Jared Thill is all three.

After years of playing cat-doesn’t-catch-mouse, the agricultural loan officer from Pleasantville, Iowa, decided he needed to change his game in 2018. Just sitting in stands with fingers crossed was not working.

His chief incentive was a buck he’d been drooling over for a very long time.

Jared retrieved his first trail camera photograph of the buck four years earlier, on July 4, which is why he began calling it Firecracker. He estimated the deer was 4 or 5 years old at the time.

“He was nice,” he said. “To be truthful, I would’ve shot him then, if I’d seen him while hunting.”

During the summer of 2018, Jared decided his only chance might be to entice the buck to stay on his property longer. And to do that, he’d have to draw and keep more does.

He began by creating four 1/4-acre clover plots, and he planted half an acre in soybeans. The extra groceries did indeed attract more deer.

Jared retrieved between 300 and 400 trail cam photos of Firecracker, but he didn’t see the deer in the flesh until Oct. 11, when he cut short his workday.

That afternoon, he christened a ladder stand situated on a fence line in view of a clover field, CRP and a big cornfield. He’d taken a nice deer on that fence line three seasons earlier, 40 yards from the very spot.

He was 18 feet aloft by 3:15.

Five minutes past 6:00, about eight does appeared and fed to within 50 or 60 yards. Jared says he could tell from their behavior that another deer might be joining them, and Firecracker soon materialized 125 yards distant.

“I knew it was him as soon as he popped over the hill,” Jared said.

The does were at 15 yards and Firecracker at 26 when Jared, mindful he might be seen, took the shot and double-lunged the buck.

“I had to do a little self-coaching to get through that,” admitted the 26-year-old.

“That morning at work, I had the feeling it was going to be one of those perfect days. It just felt right,” he said.

“I’m a big believer in the Moon Guide, and everything was aligning.

Jared’s whitetail has not been measured for the BTR, but the antlers have been rough-scored at 215 inches. Much more detail about this incredible hunt will appear in Rack magazine later this year.

— Read Recent Blog! Series of Fortunate Events: Hunter: Alan Flanders | The antlers haven’t been taped for the BTR, but they’ve been rough-scored at 202 1/8 inches.

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