by Daniel E. Schmidt, D&DH editor

No matter where you hunt, it’s easy to see the difference just one year can make to
the size of a mature white-tailed buck.

Such is the case with a great buck my friend Adam killed in north-central Wisconsin
on Sunday. Adam is a diehard trophy hunter, and he closely monitors the buck population
on the land he hunts. Although some of those observations are done through in-the-field
scouting and glassing, most of it is done through trail-camera surveillance. An avid
bow-hunter, he strives to target deer based off of ages classes rather than antler
scores. Having a good handle on the age of the bucks roaming his property certainly
helped when a dandy 12-point showed up near his stand last weekend (which was opening
weekend for our bow season). Standing there in front of him was a deer he knew well
— a deer, in fact, that he knew was a 3-1/2-year-old when he captured his first photo
of it in 2008.

Knowing the deer was mature — despite having an enormous rack — immediately sealed
the deal in Adam’s mind that this indeed was one he wanted to harvest.

The beautiful 12-point rough-scored 166-2/8 P&Y. The buck had a huge body to go along
with the rack. The deer weighed 204 pounds field dressed.

Adam believes the second trail-cam photo is of the buck from last year…even though
that image shows a split tine on the one side and a sticker on the other. The brow
tines, however, are almost identical. What do you think?

Thanks to Adam for sharing these photos with us!

See more photos of mature bucks in Whitetail
Racks.