Illinois Buck Harvest – A Buck Named Tank

LAST UPDATED: May 8th, 2015

Sweet, sweet November is finally upon us!  If you’re a crazy bowhunting nut like myself this is the time you live for, so make sure you’re ready to go because the heat of the rut is right around the corner!

October ended on a high note for me, as I was able to film myself harvesting a beautiful Illinois buck that some of my neighbors had nicknamed “Tank”.  The ironic part about this particular hunt is that the buck did nearly the exact same thing my 192″ buck did last fall.  When you see the footage you’ll see what I’m talking about!

Just like last year I was able to catch this buck coming out of his bedding area during daylight, no doubt going to check out some of the local does.  That’s been the key to my October success lately.  Find where they’re bedding and get them while they’re still predictable, because you never know where they are going to end up once the rut hits.

You can tell by the body size on this Illinois brute why he earned the nickname “Tank”!  Justin and I gross scored him at just over 144 inches.

Tank is a buck that we knew well, with multiple trail camera photos of him being taken all summer and fall.  Proof yet again that they can be valuable tools to get a good inventory of the bucks living on your hunting property.  Tank was one of the most visible bucks in the area as you can tell by the photos below.

My shot was a little further back than I had wanted, but with the massive 1 1/2″ cutting diameter of the NAP BloodRunner Tank only made it 175 yards before expiring.  It was a tough blood trail at times, but thanks to the help of my good friends Don and Glen Spolum we recovered Tank with relative ease.  Thanks for the help guys, I really appreciate it!

The NAP BloodRunner really did a number on this buck, which is why we were able to recover him within 200 yards from the shot.

We’ll have the video posted right here on Bowhunting.com very shortly.  We’re a little behind right now, been spending too much time in the treestand and not enough behind our computers!  I’ll be sure to let you all know when it’s posted.

As always, if you’re looking for any last-minute gear before the rut really kicks into high gear check out our online shopping cart.  We’ve got over 14,000 bowhunting products so chances are we have what you’re looking for!

Check out the Video of it here!