Big Buck 411 Blog

Pre-September Giant

Pre-September Giant

By Mike Handley

Nina Rogers jumpstarted her 2020 bow season 47 days before the archery opener in her home state of Alabama.

The 24-year-old Prattville resident traveled to Tennessee in late August to take advantage of Ol’ Rocky Top’s early three-day deer hunt, which the locals call “the velvet season.”

Nina, a 2nd lieutenant with the Air Force, joined her boyfriend, Scottie Layman, operator of Elk River Outfitters, for the Lincoln County excursion.

Two weeks before the Aug. 28 Tennessee opener, Scottie’s trail cameras were full of buck photos, including a 16-pointer to which Nina staked a claim. Most of the feeding deer were photographed between midnight and 9 a.m. until a couple of days before the curtain opened, when some of them were walking in front of the lens at dusk.

The couple certainly welcomed the deer’s change in routine.

Opening day was stormy. Nina and Scottie went out after the rain, but they didn’t stay long. The second morning was also awful, so they waited until lunchtime to go to the ground blind Scottie had set up earlier that summer.

Nina would normally hunt with her compound bow from a treestand, but she was carrying a crossbow that day.

“My shoulder was messed up, so Scottie advised me to use a crossbow. I had practiced some with it, but I had not hunted with it yet,” she told Gita Smith, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “I was bummed about having to sit in a ground blind, but my shoulder was just too bad for me to climb into a stand.”

Nina spotted antlers in the woods about 6 p.m., 40 yards from the couple’s blind. Scottie didn’t see the group of deer — immature 8-pointers — until she tapped his leg.

The bachelor party scoped out the field, but they didn’t hang around for very long. Nina’s outlook spiraled downward when the animals disappeared.

“We’d been having deer blow all around us, probably because it was hot and we were sweating,” she said.

The lull was short, however, and she needn’t have worried.

When a big 9-pointer appeared, Scottie immediately urged his girlfriend to shoot it. She would’ve, too, but the moment she disengaged the crossbow’s safety, she caught a glimpse of a second and much larger whitetail quickly approaching.

The newcomer was the 16-pointer for which she’d called dibs.

Rather than wait for the animal to turn broadside, as Scottie was suggesting repeatedly, she took the shot presented.

“I had been studying shot placement, and the deer was at a perfect quartering-to position,” she said. “I knew where to place the crosshairs to make that 21-yard shot.”

Besides, she was also worried the deer might head into the nearby tall grass.

“Scottie tried to tell me where to put the crosshairs, but I shot before he was finished advising me,” Nina continued. “My arrow went straight through its heart.”

The deer hasn’t been taped for the BTR yet.

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Copyright 2024 by Buckmasters, Ltd.

Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd