Hunter: Louie Payne
Animal: 145 1/8" 9 Point Whitetail
Location: Kentucky
Weapon: PSE-Dream Season X-Force

After getting home late on Thursday night form IL, I knew we would be busy at the store so I went to work with my wife Melissa who had been filling in for me all this week while I was out of town.  Since we own a hunting store, the day before gun season is our busiest day of the year and I was chomping at the bit to get out of there in time for a evening hunt.   As soon as Dustin, the young man that helps us out in the store after school every day, came in I was trying to get out of there and get to the woods.  Well...we kept getting busier...and busier...and before I knew it I am running late!  So I decided to go to the spot where I killed my buck last year since it is just a few miles from the store and I can be there in 5 minutes.

Back in mid August we put in a Biologic food plot and we didn’t get much rain if any at all, but finally it got enough moisture and started coming on strong late.  We got some good Reconyx pictures of 3 shooters early season but they seemed to disappear when the beans dried up.  Since the food plot was doing really good now we decided to run a couple of cameras and see if there was much activity.  While we were in IL the Reconyx took a couple of pictures of a new buck that we called the split G2 buck.

Last year when we got back from our IL trip I got lucky enough to harvest my buck 3 days before the Kentucky gun season, how cool would it be if history would repeat itself with only one evening hunt left before invasion orange hits.

I have not hunted this set at all this year, so we rushed back to the food plot and we have knee high brassicas so I put the Flambeau Boss Buck decoy out and climbed into the stand.  As time goes by with nothing going on and the evening coming to an end we were getting ready to get down and I looked over at the pond where my deer last year came from and I see a deer so I pulled up my Nikon binoculars and look and it’s the split G2 buck and he is bigger than I thought he was!  I grunted to him two times and he sees the Boss Buck decoy and here he comes across the food plot!  We are running out of light quick so I am praying and hoping this buck gives me a shot before it is to late.  Well he goes to make the circle down wind of the Boss Buck and he comes within 12 yards of the stands and the new Dream Season bow sends a Rage right through both lungs and he piles up 75 yards away!

How sweet it is to take a 145” main frame 8 pointer the evening before gun season, I guess lighting does strike twice.

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