Don’t tell Greg Glesinger that the rut isn’t the best time to pin your hopes on tagging an exceptional whitetail.
While it’s true mature bucks might have tunnel vision, no time for food and no brakes when chasing does, they’ve got to go somewhere, and that somewhere could be within 31 yards of your setup.
The story of a doe leading a buck to its demise isn’t new, but this one ends with a 239-incher, the largest ever filmed for Drury Outdoors.
Greg lives in Cambridge, Wisconsin, but the setting for his tale is the Iowa farm he’s owned for eight years.
In 2017, he retrieved trail camera images of two outstanding whitetails he named Major League and Extra Inning. He wound up taking Major League, estimated to break the 200-inch mark.
Greg found Extra Inning’s sheds the following spring, and the buck showed up on one of his many trail cameras during the summer. Judging from the photos, the deer had put on another, almost unbelievable 60 inches of antler.
Best of all, it wasn’t a nomad.
“I believe this buck was staying within 40 or fewer acres, since he never showed up on any other cameras,” Greg told John Phillips, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
Man and deer’s fateful rendezvous came on the gray afternoon of Oct. 30. Greg and his cameraman made it to his blind a little after 2:00, earlier than usual for an evening sit.
An antsy does was the first deer to come out of the shadows and into the clover field. She emerged from a draw 80 yards away, and Extra Innings wasn’t far behind her. They were apparently headed for the nearby bedding area.
More does and a couple of young bucks came to the clover about 5:30, and one of the girls seemed nervous and more interested in where she’d been than where she was going. Greg wasn’t surprised when Extra Innings emerged from the thicket where she’d been glaring.
“Extra Innings never ate any of the clover. He continued to watch the doe he was following, and she was walking toward me,” Greg said. “He eventually came to within 48 yards of the blind and worked one of the scrapes at the edge of the field.”
Greg was torn between taking the shot and waiting to see if the animal would come even closer.
“The doe was moving toward our blind. If the buck followed her, he’d be at 31 yards,” he said.
That’s where arrow met meat.
Greg’s 2018 deer has not been officially scored, but it’s much bigger than the giant he shot the previous season. He was on Cloud Nine after tagging the first 200-incher. His latest sent him over the moon.
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