It was cloudy and gentle on Nov. 23, the opening day of Wisconsin’s firearms season, with temperatures round 40 levels. The wind was mild, and Alexander Welk was settled in a treestand on 40 acres of personal land in northeast Wisconsin. Welk had seen a pair deer earlier that morning as they walked alongside the close by cedar swamp.
“It was nearly midday, often the sluggish time of day for deer searching,” Welk tells Out of doors Life. “However I heard a splash again within the swamp. Then a twig snapped loudly. Subsequent, I noticed some motion in some thick cowl. Then I noticed a deer.”
The deer had a tall rack that Welk acknowledged instantly. He’d been after the identical buck for the final two months after getting path cam photographs of it in September. Welk hunted exhausting by archery season and spent what he thinks was round 200 hours pursuing the buck. However he hadn’t seen the large 14-pointer, which he nicknamed Freak Present, till now.
“I grabbed my rifle, put the scope crosshairs on him and waited for him to get right into a taking pictures lane,” says Welk, a 32-year-old electrician from Little Chute. “He stepped into the lane however turned towards me strolling. I didn’t have a broadside shot at him till he was 70 yards out.”
With the buck in vary, Welk slowly squeezed the set off of his Tikka T3X 300 Winchester Magnum. The buck jumped, then turned and bumped into the swamp, the place Welk heard the deer fall. However when he acquired down from his tree and walked to the place the buck was standing when he shot, he couldn’t discover any blood.
“There was no manner I missed him, so I walked the place he went into the swamp,” says Welk. “I discovered some muddy water within the swamp, and a few broke branches on timber. I went one other 10 yards and located a blood path, and I discovered him mendacity in some lengthy grass.
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After discipline dressing the deer, Welk began the trek out of the swamp. He dragged the estimated heavy buck for roughly 200 yards, wading by chilly water that was a foot deep in locations. He lastly reached a spot the place he might get his truck. He heaved the buck into it and drove dwelling, the place his household was anxious to see the buck he’d spent a lot time pursuing.
Welk says the buck was wanting lean after the rut. Its rack has 14 whole factors and an inside unfold of 20 5/8 inches. Welk has not tried to attain it but, however he plans to have it scored when his taxidermist makes a shoulder mount.
“I’d spent a lot time searching Freak Present that after I lastly acquired him it was like dwelling a dream,” Welk says. “I hunted each weekend for him, and I let a whole lot of different smaller bucks go by … and I by no means noticed him within the day till the gun season opener. He was the buck I actually wished, and it’s like dwelling a fantasy now that I acquired him.”
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