Hunter: Tom Ware
Animal: 139 5/8" Whitetail
Location: Iowa
Weapon: Thompson Center Pro Hunter

Filming yourself is a challenge, but during the late season in a box blind it becomes a little bit easier. These bucks come out to the food and instantly put their heads down to eat and recover from the rut. If you have the food plots, the late season can be as good or even better than the rut! I had the food on my farm in Iowa, but it wasn’t going to last long. The cold temperatures and a few inches of snow had forced all the deer to the standing bean food plots like a mall on Christmas Eve. There were so many deer hitting these plots that the food was soon disappearing at a fast rate.

I hunted most of the 2nd gun season in Iowa without seeing the certain buck I wanted to see. I saw many nice deer, but the monster I wanted to see had kept hidden. On the second to last night I was tired and decided if I didn’t see the big one I would take a great management buck if I could get good video of him by myself. That is exactly what happened. I was able to see an old deer that I ironically named Prancer and it was almost Christmas. I promised my 7 year old that this particular buck wasn’t really one of Santa’s reindeer and that if she continued to be a good girl that I’m sure Santa would indeed make it to our house this year! Prancer made it to the field with about 30 minutes of filming light left and finally stood still long enough for me to get the camera steady on him and get my TC Pro Hunter out of the window of the box blind and get a shot.

He is an old buck who needed to be taken off the property and that is exactly what I did. He won’t be able to guide anyone’s sleigh this year nor in the future, but this Prancer buck needed to be retired on the Ware Farm to make it a better farm in the future. Sometimes if the buck you really want doesn’t come out it is better to take a management buck than not to take a buck at all. This seemed like a perfect time to do just that!

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