It came down to the last day of our hunt in North Dakota and the pressure was on. Mike and I hunted 8 days at 8 different farms and just seemed a step behind all of the big bucks. The full moon wasn’t helping us at all the first few days and very few deer even moved in the daylight. We had pictures of shooter bucks at every spot and things got a little frustating in the final days with the deer still not cooperating. In a last ditch effort, thanks to Nate and Mike, we decided to change things up and hang a whole new set up in an effort to catch a certain buck in the daylight. We moved closer to where we thought he was bedding and boy were Nate and Mike right! I turned behind me 45 minutes before sunset and saw the buck we were after stand up from his bed. He fed for a few minutes and layed back down. It didn’t look like he was going to move anytime soon so Mike suggested we stalk him. I thought he was crazy but he talked me into it with the last minutes of camera light approaching us. It was now or never! We got down and started the stalk. The deer got up and actually started heading our way 10-15 minutes into our approach. Mike and I decided to hide in some cattails and wait for the deer to arrive. After what seemed like a million mosquito bites later, in just a few short minutes he showed up. He was walking straight at us and then moved off to our right at about 25 yards. I drew back as he turned to the right and he stopped. He was quartering to me just a hair and I let the arrow fly. The arrow struck tightly behind the shoulder (didn’t find this out until we found him) and he bolted out of there. With light fading quickly, we decided to back out and come back in the morning. After a sleepless night we got up just after sunrise and decided to go after him. We found blood a few minutes into the search and it led straight to him just 100 yards away! I couldn’t believe it… Mike and I pulled off the unthinkable by stalking and taking a mature whitetail from the ground! It was an unbelievable hunt and I will never forget it! It was truly a dream come true! A special thanks goes out to Nate Flynn and his family at Central Dakota Lodge for another awesome experience! I can’t say enough good things about them!! Thanks to Mike for filming me as well!

The Missouri opener is just over a day away and Mike has a plan to get a big one on the ground. Hopefully we will have another story to share with you shortly!

Safe and Happy Hunting… Good luck to all this season!

Skyler Wirsig