Big Buck 411 Blog

Desperate Times and Measures

Desperate Times and Measures

By Mike Handley

Hunting the same property day after day can be like pining for pizza in a chicken joint. Eventually, you’re going to grow weary of looking at wings, thighs and drumsticks, and drive across town so hot mozzarella can burn the roof of your mouth.

Sick of seeing the same immature deer every time he went afield in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving 2019, Tyler Pruett broke script on the afternoon of Nov. 24.

The young hunter from Flintville, Tennessee, went to a picked cotton field no one in his family had hunted that year, a tract unmonitored by trail cameras. And while there might have been two or three stands in place, he opted to stay on the ground.

“It was going to start raining at some point, and I knew it would get dark early,” he told Lisa Price, who’s writing his story for Rack magazine. “If I went to any of the stands, I knew it would be dark before any deer that moved would get to me, so I decided to move closer to them.”

About 2 p.m., he sat against a tree on the field’s edge, cradling his rifle. New green growth carpets the rows of picked cotton, acting as a food plot and deer magnet.

Within the hour, a couple of does and two young bucks were grazing in front of him. That they kept looking back toward the woods didn’t go unnoticed by Tyler.

While picking apart the distant tree line with binoculars, he finally saw what they saw.

“I could tell the buck was pretty decent, with good mass and lots of points,” he said. “But what I remember most are those drop tines.”

In order to get even a long shot, Tyler had to break cover and ease into the field. The maneuver paid off handsomely as only four of the five deer managed to reach the trees after he squeezed the trigger.

The Lincoln County 27-pointer has a BTR score of 230 3/8 inches.

— Read Recent Blog! Maiden Season: Very few people possess the chutzpah to pick up a rifle for the first time and centerpunch a target, especially a living, breathing one. But that’s exactly what 18-year-old Madelyn Calvert did in 2019.

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