After 25 years of deer searching Luke Perzee of Danforth, Illinois, tagged the buck of a lifetime this fall. Pezee, who works for an electrical firm, was searching farm nation in Iroquois County, south of Chicago on the Indiana state line.
“I’ve been watching this buck for a pair years and would see him in the identical locations in a one-mile sq. of corn and soybeans,” Perzee tells Outside Life. “I’d seen the buck 4 occasions this 12 months, largely with my household whereas driving round farms and glassing for deer.”
Normally, he noticed the buck in standing corn or tall grass. There have been deep ditches filled with tangled cowl and brush, however no close by timber to hold a stand. So Perzee, usually a devoted compound bowhunter, borrowed a buddy’s crossbow for the doubtless tough circumstances of stalking standing corn.
Perzee was stalking these ditch edges and corn on Oct. 15 when he noticed the buck however couldn’t join. On Oct. 17, he drove farm roads glassing for the buck till late morning, however by no means noticed him. So at 11 a.m., he parked and began slipping by rows of corn the place he’d beforehand seen the buck.
“I’d slip alongside 20 toes, cease and glass and search for deer,” says Perzee, 40. “Then transfer alongside once more slowly.”
He hunted that approach for two hours and by no means noticed a deer. The circumstances, he says, have been very best for stalking corn: the climate was sunny and delicate, with a ten mph wind that helped conceal his noise and motion.
“I lastly noticed [a buck] 75 yards away, bedded in some CRP on the sting of the corn,” Perzee says. “I might solely see a couple of inches of his antler tops, so I wasn’t fairly certain it was the large buck I wished.”
The buck was alert, trying round and eyeing his environment. Over the subsequent half-hour, Perzee crept nearer inching nearer to the buck till he was simply 20 yards away.
“I sat down and put my crossbow on a corn stalk as a relaxation. Then I grunted a pair occasions. It felt like eternally, however after [the last] grunt he stood up and turned broadside. I aimed and shot.”
The arrow handed utterly by the rib cage. The buck jumped, then walked 40 yards, licking his facet, earlier than falling over lifeless a couple of seconds later.
“I simply couldn’t imagine what simply occurred,” Perzee says. “I phoned my spouse then my brother. Then I referred to as my 19-year-old nephew C.J. Perzee and advised him I wanted assist loading up a large buck I’d simply shot.”
“Once I met him, [C.J.] joked, ‘What’s the matter previous man, can’t you load that deer alone?’” Perzee stated. “However when C.J. noticed the buck he yelled, ‘Holy crap!’”
The 2 loaded the buck and drove it residence to indicate his spouse, Megan, and their daughters, Karleigh and Kyrah.
“They have been all with me and had seen that buck so many occasions. It was an actual household celebration once they might lastly put their palms on that deer.”
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A processor weighed the field-dressed buck at 205 kilos and estimated it was 5.5 years previous. His taxidermist green-scored it at 195 3/8s inches with 16 factors.
“I borrowed my buddy Alex Hubert’s crossbow, and I can’t thank him sufficient for letting me use it,” Perzee says. “This entire factor has been simply wonderful. I’m so very lucky for this buck and every little thing to do with it.”
