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Stan Potts’ First Velvet Whitetail

By Hunting NetworkSeptember 18, 2011

LAST UPDATED: May 8th, 2015

After more than 45 years of bowhunting, Stan finally got his first whitetail buck in velvet, and it is quite a trophy. With 16 scorable points, the basic framed 7 x 5 with 4 stickers, grosses 197 4/8 inches.

Four strategies came together to let Stan kill this buck. First, they had a couple photos on a trail camera that let them know the buck was on the property. Second, topo maps and aerial photos gave an indication of how the buck might be moving to and from bedding and food sources. Third, a small, early season, green field food plot located in a very secluded timber setting was key to catching this buck on his feet in daylight hours. And fourth, an unbelievable intuitive knowledge of big buck habits honed over many years of bowhunting, combined with confidence in the stand choice is what finally pulled it all together. This was a non-guided hunt on private property we just leased in western Kentucky. No outfitter was involved.

Stan and cameraman Barry Greenhaw went in a few days prior to the Kentucky bow opener to scout and learn the property. They had never been on this farm before and had only just recently closed the deal on the lease. They quickly hung 4 double stand sets for filming and tried not to disturb the property.

The KY bow season opened with super hot temps in the high 90s. They decided not to hunt at all the first day. On the second afternoon, t he temps weren’t much better and they only saw a few deer from the stand that afternoon. Stan poured over the topo maps and aerial photos of the farm. They didn’t want to spend time on foot going through the property any more than they had to for fear of putting the big buck off his pattern. He decided by looking at the maps the most logical place for the buck to be bedded was on some benches in a big drainage.  He predicted the buck would be using the drainage to go to and from a secluded green food plot.

The weather cooled off on Monday. The stand location they decided to hunt was nearly half a mile from where they had trail camera photos of the buck, but Stan felt sure the buck would eventually use the drainage to feed.

I drove them to the stand in a utility vehicle Monday afternoon. There were already does and fawn in the field and they scattered when we approached. I waited until they were in the treestands before pulling out of the field. Stan said it wasn’t 10 minutes before they deer came back out. Eventually a doe got downwind of them and spooked all the deer out of the food plot. After 45 minutes Barry spotted a buck stepping out of the timber into the foot plot. It was the buck they were after!

A second buck a 150 class 10 pointer was with him. That deer was broadside at 20 yards for about 10 minutes but the buck Stan wanted most did not present a good shot. He was either quartering toward or behind, or in front of the other buck. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably more like 10 minutes, the buck began to move toward another one that had just appeared. This gave Stan the chance he had been waiting for. The shot was broadside at about 20 yards. With Mathews in hand he sent his broadhead to its mark and the deer didn’t go far, going down in the timber. Footage from the hunt will be on Mathews Dominant Bucks TV (Outdoor Channel) and North American Whitetail TV (Sportsmen Channel) next year.

 

 

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