Justin Candido’s 2019 deer season ended on opening day. It took him a little longer and required more creativity last year.
Before the tow truck driver from Somerset, Kentucky, punched his ’19 tag by shooting a nice buck the first evening, a much bigger one with drop tines was photographed for the first time near his stand.
The buck didn’t reappear among his trail cam photos until a couple of weeks after the season ended. In the interim, Justin saw it in the flesh one December night while driving with his wife, Celeste.
The deer visited his stand site in Pulaski County many times thereafter.
“In another couple of months, I got a picture of a buck that already had antler bases the size of Coke cans. I was pretty sure it was the same buck,” Justin told Dale Weddle, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
“By late May, I could tell the animal was going to be a stud. And as predicted, its rack just exploded in June and July. I was getting regular morning and afternoon photos.”
The camera was monitoring the area in front of his logging road blind, which sits on a 12-foot-tall platform. He spreads corn and mineral, but there’s also a small clover plot nearby, as well as persimmon trees.
The animal’s antlers were impressive in 2019, but even bigger the next time. It wore 19 more points than its frequent traveling companion, a small 4x4.
“The buck’s arrival time fluctuated a little, but it generally showed between 7 and 8, whether a.m. or p.m.,” he said.
Because Justin’s business keeps him on the road late into the night, he fell into the habit of checking his cameras before returning home between 1:00 and 2 a.m.
He eagerly braved the heat to sit in the blind on opening morning of the ’20 season. The evening hunt was far more enjoyable and productive.
He spotted the wild-antlered buck and its little running mate about 7:00. While junior came to the corn, the granddaddy remained in thick brush, eventually deciding to leave without a meal.
When Justin checked the camera later, he learned the animal had already eaten its fill while he wasn’t there. That’s why he chose to break with tradition by returning to the blind a half-hour past midnight. He’d intended to sleep, though he was too uncomfortable to do so.
He saw lots of deer that morning, but not the one he wanted. It was as if the deer knew when he was there.
The following Friday afternoon, Sept. 18, he tried yet another tactic by having his wife drop him off at the blind an hour earlier than he would normally go.
The evening was cooler than usual, thanks to the arrival of a cold front. The Bobbsey twins showed about 7:40, and junior left by himself.
At 236 inches, Justin’s 27-pointer is the fifth-largest among Kentucky bucks felled by compound bow.
— Read Recent Blog! New Hampshire’s No. 2 Whitetail: The antlers tally 196 1/8 inches by the BTR’s yardstick. It’s the runner-up to the state compound bow record taken 20 years earlier.