A Minnesota Booner

Here is the biggest deer of 2023 from my Minnesota business taken by Ryan Plunger from MI during the first shotgun season.  I first started getting pictures of this buck on Oct 20th on a mock scrape that I had set up in the summer time by a brand new stand location.  

We hunted this deer during the archery season with only one encounter with him and he seemed to disappear.  No more pictures of him and no more encounters with him anywhere.  Being my first year with this business and these properties, I did not know of this deer at all until the original pictures.  After he disappeared after only getting one day of pictures of him, I wrote him off as a wonderer and basically hoped he would show up again when the rut kicked in high gear.  That didn't hapen either.  I was gone guiding in Wisconsin during the last day of the gun hunt in Minnesota but got a call from one of my guides there telling me that had a buck down and it was worth making the drive over to come see this buck.  I made the drive over that evening to congratulat the hunter and see this buck in person.  It was definitely worth the trip!!  At first I didn't realize what buck it was until my guide Lance said to me, "You know what deer this is"?  At first I said No until he then said we think this is the split brow buck from Ocotober.  As soon as he said it I knew he was right.  He showed up on a completely differnt part of the property that day from where the orginal pictures were taken and I even had this area peppered in cameras and never had a picture of him there.  Ryan saw this buck but couldn't get a shot and actually rattled his rattle bag and got him to commit enough after five times of doing that to get a good shot.  I'm not a huge fan of rattling but it was his only option he said and it worked!!