Hunting Trophy Whitetails on Maryland's Eastern Shore with Steve Rupert of Shore Bet Outfitters


The Bowsite has done it again!
We are bringing you an actual hunt - while it happens - from the field. With the use of digital cameras, laptops, cell phones, and remote internet connections, you are able to be part of our hunt. And because they are live, you will certainly experience things that happen to real people - like misses, bad weather, mishaps, and maybe even unfilled tags. This is real life bowhunting! Check for updates each day!


 

Monday Morning:

My first morning's hunt was met with less than favorable conditions. The wind was gusting and blowing in the direction of the fields. At 6:30 AM a lone deer erratically moved across a soybean field. It was too far to tell the sex, but from the behavior, it was probably a buck. At 7:00 AM a doe and fawn came in and presented several shot opportunities. The two deer fed around me for 20 minutes until they bedded in front of me at 15 yards (fawn) and 25 yards. They stayed there all morning, getting up once at 9:30 to stretch and lay back down. At 11:10 AM the fawn got up and fed around again until heading off through a thick gulch.

The heavy winds lasted all morning. I stayed there until 11:30 AM but those three deer were the only ones I saw.

 

Left: Besides the deceptive photo, this doe is only 10 yards from my stand. She came out of the thick stuff and milled around for a minute. At one point, she pegged me trying to get a picture of her but soon calmed back down and bedded.


Monday Afternoon:

We went to a different farm for the evening hunt. Steve brought me to a thick area that had good buck sign and great deer runs. I set up my tree stand and had my bow in my hands by 2:30. Just five minutes later, 11 does came feeding up the trail and milled about under my tree stand. I had lots of shots but passed them up. At 3:30 a spike buck followed the scent trail left by the does, he came by my stand at 20 yards. I drew my bow a couple times to guage how spooky they were. He eventually left, but it was apparent that the buck was rutting hard.

 

At 3:40, more does came in, 40 MORE DOES! There were deer everywhere, underneath my stand, to my left , to my right, everywhere. They fed in the general area for an hour until a big 7 pt. buck came in. I first heard him grunting then I saw the antlers coming through the thickets. He spotted a doe underneath my stand and headed right in. He was a big buck, scruffy and beat up. All the hair on his back end was rubbed off from fighting, he was limping and he had a broken brow tine. When I say he was big, I mean, he was big! He was very heavy, and I guessed his inside spread to be between 18 and 19 with eight inch G2's and six inch G1 points.

The buck chased a doe around my tree, grunting with each step. As the doe ran off, the buck stopped at 3 yards from my tree quartering hard.

I slowly drew my bow, looking at a the top of his back rib. I was at full draw. For three seconds I had my middle finger buried into the corner of my mouth. I let the bow string back and passed him up.

He was one of the biggest deer I had seen, but according to Steve there were at least five other deer that were monsters in this area. Judging by this buck's broken tines, and scraped rear-end, he wasn't kidding.

But what really convinced me to pass on this buck was the buck that was shot last week by Scott Rupert - click here to see it.