Deer Hunting

In our last episode, we began the story of Tom’s season. His daughter, Morgan, has pursued Whitesocks for a number of years. While coming close, she has’t sealed the deal yet. This past season, one of Whitesock’s old running mates, Buddy, showed back up on the farm. Through much of the season they battled for dominance and in the process beat each other’s racks up pretty badly.

This story is a great example of success on a small property. The James’ own and manage just 58 acres in Indiana. With an excellent balance of summer and winter forages, they are providing great year round food sources that are attracting and feeding not only deer that call their farm home, but also the neighbors deer.

On December 22nd, Buddy visited one of those food plots as Tom was in a treestand nearby. At first glance, Tom thought it was a 3.5 year old buck, but upon further inspection he realized who the deer was. The rigors of the rut had greatly cut the body weight of Buddy and without prior knowledge of the deer, he would have aged the deer incorrectly. Knowing this, he took the shot and was able to harvest an awesome 5.5 year old buck that had character from the rigors of the rut.