New York Rut Hunt for "Main Beam 10"

By: JT Bouchard, Trophyline Brand Ambassador

There are only a few times in a hunting season that leave you breathless.  It was November 11th, 2021.  I was saddle hunting a spot that the deer like to transition through heading out to a small clover plot early in the year.  It was about an hour into my hunt when I caught my first movement.  It was a cruising buck working his way over to a scrape about 40 yards to my left.  The Buck I would later call the Main Beam 10 worked the scrape then worked off into the timber only giving me what seemed like seconds of an encounter but one that would stick with me all season.  The season would end with no more encounters and no pictures of the buck.

Fast forward to the summer of 2022 and I was out scouting new areas  to hunt for the upcoming season.   I hung trail cameras that day not knowing that one of them would reunite me with that November 11th hunt the previous year.  The Main beam 10 showed his face for the first time on camera on August 8th 2022 and he was massive. 

I would get pictures of him for a couple weeks and just like that he was gone.  I scouted and set up more cameras trying to figure out his home location but as they often do, his fall range shifted and I didn’t see him again till one of my cell cameras got night pictures of him with a doe on November 10th.  Fear of spooking him or his doe off the small parcel he was on, I did not push in but only used the intel from that camera to keep tabs.  

During the last week of bow season I never had the right wind to go in and hunt that location. Knowing I had to do something I slipped in two days before gun season started and hung sticks and the wingman in the location I felt would offer the best chance of seeing him. I quickly pulled the cards from the cameras that I had in there and to my surprise he was in there with that doe the day before I hung the set and a couple other times.  The morning of NY gun season was finally here, sitting in my saddle in the dark I was in my head thinking if I had put myself in the right spot.  Quickly the action picked up as I had a single doe work in and feed on tree tops.  Shortly after I heard the sound of chasing, a doe came right in and stopped under my tree with a buck grunting behind her.  I quickly realized it was him.  He was about 30 yards behind a large pine tree.  All I could see was his antlers.  He stepped out and started to walk at the doe offering me a 20 yard shot broadside.  After the shot I was still shocked that the hunt had come together and he was finally on the ground.