We’ve been hunting a buck we named Tank this fall pretty hard during the WI bow, gun and muzzleloader seasons. We have numerous videos and pics of him from last year and this year. He’s a 4.5 year old and moves around a lot but is very nocturnal. In fact, we have never captured him on camera during daylight hours in 2 years. His territory is pretty big – at least 2 square miles and he even swims back and forth across the Chippewa River. Craig D who I hunt with seen him during the bow season. He was on the ground connecting his climber to the tree when Tank ran by him chasing a doe at Mach 10.
We knew he was in our area because we kept on getting him on camera at night. We hunted him hard all through gun and muzzle loader season hoping to get a glimpse of him but it never happened. The last night of ML season I sat in the same area where Craig had seen him hoping he would show up but of course, he didn’t. Two nights later and I thought what the heck, I might was well go out during the Anterless Only hunt since I have don’t have any venison I thought I would try and put a doe down. Well, wouldn’t you know it at 4pm Tank walks by me at 30 yards. He even made his way over to Craig who was about 300 yards away from me so he could see him and then turned around and walked by me again at 10 yards. I watched him for 10 minutes and I literally could have jumped on his back at one time.
Well the good news is the hunt is not over and I still have a bow tag left. I’m guessing he will probably be a couple miles away by the time I can get out there again.