Featured Buck of the Month
Featured buck of the month was created not only to congratulate hunters on their accomplishment but to be able to share experiences they have encountered leading up to their kill. Our belief is that you can never get enough information, knowledge or experience about whitetails. By sharing other people's experiences, it just might help you get the edge on that big buck that you are chasing getting you the chance you need to beating him on his on turf at his own game just long enough to get a shot at him. Criteria for selecting the buck of the month will not solely be the size of the buck but the experiences the hunter had during the hunt.
Brendon Mescall
 This month's feature buck was killed by Brendon Mescall of Indiana. Brendon is a young man in college who plays football and seems to have a pretty hectic life. Amongst all of the hustle and bustle in his life, because of the love to hunt whitetails many of us share, he carved out time to scout and prepare to kill this buck of his dreams. Persistence and consistency paid off on Nov. 11th when he arrowed this big11 pointer. Brendon saw something he wanted and went after it. BWB tips our hats off to you Brendon for killing a beautiful buck and for providing us with a great story.
Hal and Chris
 A buck of my dreams
It all began in the summer of 2007. I had been spotlighting our two fields that we have planted in biologic, when I saw this buck. We had not seen him in the past years. He showed up regularly around eleven every night. He was traveling with a smaller six pointer, and a spike buck. I tried to keep him a secret from many people in fear that someone would poach him. This field he was coming to is about forty yards off a fairly traveled road. However I did take a couple of my good friends and younger brother out to see this buck. I was unable to take my dad out to see him, because he would not stay up late enough. So I decided to take my trail camera down to the wood line and try to get a couple of photos. I was successful in doing so, and in these photos he appears to be a ten pointer. I showed dad, and he too was very excited for the season to begin.
Now my father, younger brother Taylor, and I are very competitive when it comes to most things. So everyone was spending time in the woods scouting and strategizing where they could intercept this buck. I found a spot that was heavily traveled. I figured if I hunted the spot enough, possibly I could get a shot him. Being in college and playing football this year; I thought it would be hard to make it home and hunt. I was surprised. I was able to make it home almost every weekend after our games to hunt on Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings. The first couple of weekends I hunted this spot turned out nicely. I saw a couple of young bucks, and was able to start the year off by harvesting a doe. With all the deer I was seeing, my father decided to sneak over and hunt my spot one morning before I got home. He too saw many deer, and was able to harvest a nice ten point. The following weekend is when it all happened.
It was a cool Indiana morning for a November 11, and there was a little rain in the forecast for the afternoon. There was a slight wind, and I had a feeling this was going to be a great morning. As the sun was rising, the woods were coming to life. The squirrels and birds began their day. It was one of those quite mornings where you can hear everything move. It was just after seven o'clock when I heard something off to my right. I saw a good size deer traveling down from a bedding area about sixty yards away from me. He was traveling through some thick cover away from me. I figured it had to be a buck due to the large body size. So I grabbed up my primo's buck roar, and grunted at him. He did not respond to it, so I grabbed my heat bleat and bleated at him. He stopped in his tracks to look back my way. Now he is in a clearer spot, and I can tell he is a shooter buck. He stood there for a few minutes and then began to continue on his path away from me. I was not sure what to do, but I knew I had to do something or I would not get a chance at him. So I growled at him with my buck roar and it really got his attention. He immediately turned around and started towards me. He is now on the opposite side of an old creek bed which is fairly deep. He is walking my direction, with his head down and ears back, then I realized it was him. This is the buck I had been watching all summer. My knees began to shake and I could barely stand. He stopped at about forty yards behind a huge oak tree. I could only see his back end, and a tree that he was rubbing on. I knew if he stepped out from behind this tree I could have an open shot at him, except there is a small branch in my way. So I reached out and broke it off, something you should really not do, but I got away with it. I saw him move so I drew thinking he is about to step out, but he does not. He turns around and begins to walk away from me again. So I let my draw down and watched. I know I can't call to him again or he will spook off. So I stand and watch. He goes about ten yards and crosses the creek bed where it is not as deep, and starts back down my way. My heart is racing again and I can't calm myself down. He is walking at a slow pace right at me. He stops at about twenty yards, puts his head down and starts to sniff the trail I walked in on. I freaked out thinking he would catch wind of me. So I draw back, when I come to full drawl I came into this calm state, it is something I can't explain, but it felt good. With his head down, and facing me, I decided to take the shot, I could wait no longer. I placed the arrow beautifully at the base of his neck between his shoulder blades. He took off running only forty yards and stopped. I stood watching and waiting, he began to sway and then fell over. I was ecstatic. What seemed like an hour was only about ten minutes. I called my girlfriend from my stand to tell her I got the one we had been watching all summer. Then I called my house to tell dad, and the family to come out to my spot, for I had got the big one.
After climbing down I gathered my stuff and walked to him. When I got there I realized he was bigger than I had thought. He was taller, wider, and he was an eleven pointer rather than a ten. He had split brow tines and heavy bases. This was a buck of my dreams. I was extremely happy and my family was happy for me. We hauled him back to the house where we took many pictures. After I checked him in the word spread that I had shot a big buck. So I went around to my friends to show them what I had accomplished. After getting back home, with the help of my father, we skinned him out so I could take him to the taxidermy where he will be scored and mounted.
Mike and Ryan Jurgiewich
 This month's featured buck is submitted by a father and son hunting team. BWB is pleased to see someone taking the time to invest in tomorrow's deer hunters, conservationists and trackers. Mike Jurgiewich and his 9 year old son Ryan teamed up to scout/hunt on a snowy November morning last year and ended up tracking killing a beautiful 10 point buck which dressed at 220 lbs. At the same time, they created a memory of a lifetime sharing in the experience, learning as they went along the track and beating the old mature buck at his own game on his own turf. What an awesome time they must have had together. Mike is no stranger to the woods being a forester and an accomplished photographer. You can see some of Mike's work on his website at www.comstockmtn.com. Some of the products and services he offers is matted framed photography, greeting cards and stock photography of typical Maine animals such as moose, black bear and deer. Congratulations to Mike and Ryan for their success. Good luck on future hunts together. I have a suspicion Mike will be giving up the gun to Ryan in the future for Ryan's first deer.
Hal and Chris
My 9 year old son Ryan and I left camp at daybreak and headed out to do some scouting/hunting as I had the entire next week off for vacation. The new snow from the night before made for great conditions and we struck off in search of tracks. It took us until 10 o'clock to finally cut a track that wasn't snowed in so we decided to follow it, (easy decision as it was the only one we had seen all morning and a nice buck track). The track was easy to read, the buck was just out searching for does and not wasting a lot of time, just covering ground. After about 45 minutes of following the track it crossed a stream that was to big for my son to cross with his boots so we decided to leave the track and continue downstream and then swing back towards the tent now over 2 miles away. After going only about 100 yards downstream we found a blowdown that allowed us to cross the stream so the chase was back on. Figuring that the buck was still cruising for does we started to circle hoping to find the track. Pretty quick, there was the track, but it was heading back to the stream. I mentioned to Ryan that this seemed weird and to do his best at being quite. Less than 5 minutes later as I was peeking thru the trees all I could see was the head, neck and antlers of a NICE buck. I raised my rifle and fired. Nothing moved so I fired again and off ran the buck and 2 does that were with him. Ryan was ecstatic that I had shot. He saw the deer running off but had not seen them before I shot. Asking what I had shot at, I told him a nice racked buck. "Did you get it Dad?" I told him I hoped so but nothing happening after the first shot had me thinking. We went over to where the buck was standing, no blood, no hair, uh-oh I thought. We have a tradition in camp that if some one misses they lose a piece of there shirt tail to the game pole. Because the buck had been chasing the 2 does around the area there were tracks everywhere which meant sorting things out took a couple minutes and soon my son was mentioning that it was a shame how I had on a nice shirt today. After less than 5 minutes I found some blood and then within 30 yards of that point there lay the buck only about 75-80 yards away from where I had shot it. The look on my sons face as we walked up to the buck is one that I will never forget. I thought he was going to break my hand as he high fived me he was so excited. After pictures and field dressing the long 2 1/4 mile 7 hour drag began. It was definitely a day to remember.
Bob Sirpenski
 Our May entry finds us featuring Bob Sirpenski who hails from Voluntown, CT. Bob is a personal friend of ours and a darn good deer hunter. He has taken multiple big bucks in the Big Woods of Maine, CT and in Ontario. We thought his hunt last October in Ontario was another great example of being persistent so we decided to feature his buck this month. He has named it "Mr. October." Persistence is a key ingredient to consistently killing bucks according to Hal and I have adopted the concept after a few too many unsuccessful years of hunting and a constant reminder from Hal to pay my dues and things will come around. Obviously, Bob was listening as well and realizes the rewards of persistence. Congratulations Bob on a beautiful buck and thanks for a great story.
Hal and Chris
As far as the subject of hunting goes, I have been deer hunting for many years in all sorts of terrain. I live in Connecticut and hunt there but also manage to find time to hunt in the North Woods of Maine. I must agree with you that hunting the Big Woods of Maine is very different than hunting in Connecticut and one must use different tactics in order to be successful. Over the years I have managed to take some nice bucks and have a few that made the 200 pound club. I never did manage, however, to take a nice buck with my muzzleloader. Like most hunters every possible thing and then some unbelievably bad things happened when I've had opportunities. This past October I went on a muzzleloader hunt to Canada. On Monday the 15th of October, I missed a difficult shot at a real monster. As is usually the case with a muzzleloader, after missing, the buck jumped to an opening and stood broadside for a minute just looking around – So much for speed loaders and then he vanished - I thought to myself, "oh boy , here we go again" – I figured my one chance had come and gone. As you have said many times – be persistent, so I kept hunting in the same general area as we had seen plenty of does. I was hoping that my "poster buck" would return. On Wednesday, while still hunting across the cut, I spotted a big deer trotting across the cut. The cuts in Canada are not "clear" but are filled with brush and slash. He was coming towards me and was around 150 yards away. I knelt down in the tall grass and waited. At the same time, he stopped deciding where he wanted to go. After a very long minute, he turned sideways and started for the tree line at a slow trot. The area he was headed was thick with cover and I knew I would only have a small opening to shoot. I steadied my Knight Disc Extreme muzzleloader and fired at 100 yards when he crossed. The impact of the bullet made him jump and I knew the shot was true. I went to where he was when the bullet struck and I found him 50 yards from there. "Mr. October" – is not the biggest Ontario buck but he dressed at 200 pounds and had 8 points.
Jerod Kronholm
 This month's selection is Jerod Kronholm from Liberty, Maine. He is 22 years old. From the evidence of this year's harvest and the method he used to take this awesome buck, it seems Jerod has been paying attention to what Hal has been teaching people in his book and DVD. Jerod told me one of his goals is to take Hal's guides class and someday become a Maine guide. Maybe he will work for Hal at Cedar Ridge someday. Regardless, Jerod has followed one of the most important things Hal teaches besides his strategies and techniques. It is practice (see Hal's article on practice in the Articles section of this website). Practice leads to experience. Experience is one of the best teachers you can have. It not only applies to deer hunting but life in general. Congratulations on a fine buck Jerod and good luck on the trail.
Hal and Chris
 On October 27, 2007 it was the opening day of deer season for Maine residents. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to start the day, ate my breakfast and went outside. It was pouring rain and kind of windy. I was hunting in Searsport with one of my good friends Nick Dakin. I arrived at my spot in the woods at approximately 7:30 a.m. and decided to still hunt knowing that the deer would most likely be bedded. I still hunted my way through a dry swamp and along the top of a ridge where I've jumped deer in the past. I made my way through a fur thicket and once I came out to the other side of it I saw the rack of a deer underneath a spruce tree. I took 2 more steps towards the deer to get a look at it from approximately 20 yards away. The deer was looking in the opposite direction and had no idea that I was there. I shot the deer lying in his bed from 20 yards with my .308 with iron sights. He weighed 196 lbs. It was only 8:15 a.m. and just like that my season was over. I credit some of my still hunting ability to Hal Blood after reading his book "Hunting Big Woods Bucks".
Jed Candreva
 This month's selection is Jed Candreva of Katonah, NY. Jed is accomplish hunter and has taken numerous mature bucks sporting big racks during his hunting career. This year was no exception killing this wide and heavy beamed 12 pointer. In January of '08, Jed e-mailed us a picture of a huge boar he killed with his model 83 .475 Linebaugh handgun. 2006 proved to be a great year for Jed as well being drawn for a moose permit in Maine and in Vermont. He was successful on both hunts. He took his Maine Moose while hunting with his brother Gino at Cedar Ridge Outfitters. Jed also killed a dandy wide ten point buck that year in NY. Hal and Chris would like to congratulate Jed for taking a fine buck this year.
I killed this buck at approximately 9:30 a.m. on December 1st in New York State. The weather forecast broadcasted over the radio the day before (November 31st) indicated that the area I was to be hunting in was going to get hit with heavy snow on Sunday, December 2nd. Therefore, I figured there would be good deer movement on December 1st, as the does and lambs would be feeding to fill their bellies before the storm, and hopefully the bucks would be following the hot does. So, I decided to drive from my house to my hunting area on Friday night to get an early start up the mountain. I planned to get started at about 4:30 am Saturday morning. It was lucky for me I left for my camp when I did because the snow came early that night. I had to drive in blizzard conditions (snow and ice covered roads) but I got there.
The next morning 12-1, it was snowing really hard and the wind was blowing a gale. I took cover under a big pine tree, which overlooked a known deer trail. Nothing was moving at sun up and I decided to sit tight until the storm broke. It ended up being a good decision. Just after 9:00 a.m., three does came down the trail feeding and moving quickly but they kept looking back as if being followed. Sure enough, the buck was on their trail, nose to the ground about 150 yards or so away. I could tell that the buck was a shooter right away. I just hoped that he would give me time to set up for a shot through an opening in the trees. The buck moved in and out of the tree line and it was hard for me to pick a good spot to shoot but I tried to anticipate his next steps.
I finally shot him going away from me at about 100 yards +/-. I thought that I made a good shot on him with my .270 rifle, even though he was going away from me at an angle. I was shooting a 130 grain Federal Premium bullet. I panicked when I picked up his trail and did not find blood. It was easy to track the buck because I had fresh snow to work with and there were no other deer that had passed my vantage point. Even though there was no blood trail to follow, I continued following his tracks after he split from the doe trail. I was dejected and confused. How could I have missed! Then I found some hair, so, I kept walking in the deer's tracks. I practically stumbled onto the buck. He had only traveled approximately 40 yards. He died behind a blown down tree. He never left a blood trail. I check my entry wound and found it was behind the rib cage and the bullet angled up toward the shoulder. Evidently, the bullet did not exit the deer and lodged in its opposite shoulder. That is probably why I never found any blood.
It was a great day and a great buck.
Bo Garside
 This month's selection is Bo Garside of Augusta, ME. Bo is no stranger when it comes to killing big bucks. He has killed 4 bucks that dressed over 200 lbs. and 2 bucks have qualified for MASTC. This year's buck is no exception. It sports a heavy beamed rack that green scores at 147 2/8. He killed it on the last day of the rifle season. After running around chasing does for 3 weeks or so, it dressed out at 174 lbs. Big Woods Bucks congratulates Bo on a fine job and we wish him luck in the future.
I hunted up north the 3rd week of the 07 rifle season with very limited success. I decided to leave to come home for the family thing for a few days and didn't fare much better. Snow came Tuesday afternoon and I decided to try a spot where I had missed a heavy racked buck last muzzleloader season. I don't generally hunt there during rifle season because the hunter competition is downright fierce. I parked my truck and cut his track within 100 yards. I went another 50 yards further and found he had left the green fields before daylight with 6 adult does! They headed west across some posted land. I spent the day swinging the ridge trying to gather information on his route. He made 6 different scrapes on the snow and found where he had met and bedded down with those does for the night. For the next few days, I hunted but I couldn't do much with him as we lost snow on Thanksgiving. On the last morning of rifle season it was really COLD! The crunchy leaves were just horrible to walk in. I decided to take a stand just before daylight on his 4 day old scrape line and listened to 5 different deer work up the ridge from 3 different directions to the knob where they had all bedded 4 days earlier. I decided to sneak out and make a swing where I would wait for the sun to get up high and maybe soften the leaves. I almost decided to leave them alone altogether and wait for better conditions for the muzzleloader season. While I was literally death creeping my way out so as not to disturb the knob, I bumped into him on an hour old hot doe track. He saw me as I saw him and he decided to head up the ridge to hook up with the does. Big mistake!
Robert Sanborn, age 15
 This month's selection is Robert Sanborn from the state of Maine. He is a 15 year old avid hunter and in his own words, killed his "first good buck'. It was a 6 pointer and it weighed 160lbs. His mother Gina told us he got his first grand slam for Maine, a turkey, moose, bear, deer and plenty of coon this year. In New Hampshire he has killed a bear and a deer this year. WOW! That's a pretty exciting season. Sounds like Robert is already quite a hunter and he is only 15 years old. Well congratulations to you Robert and remember persistence, consistency, luck and enjoying the outdoors are what it is all about.
My name is Robert Sanborn and I am 15 years old. My Dad and I were on our third day of hunting in the N.H. rifle season. We were headed back into the woods after the big one. The first couple of days didn't bring us any luck. We headed where we thought there would be some snow, but come to find out there was none. We headed up onto the mountain to see what we could find. At about 8:15 a.m. we spotted a buck taking off through some thick stuff. I got a shot off and come to find out I had missed. My Dad and I took up his track and a few minutes later saw that he did not run far before starting to walk. We followed him for probably ten minutes on bare ground. He brought us to a big ravine. As I was looking down through I spotted him! He was about 25 yards away. I drew my 30-06 to my shoulder and dialed in on him and let one sound off. The buck took off and I fired again to put him down. We got him out and on to the scale. He was a 6 pointer weighing 160 lbs. I was very happy with this buck as it is my first good buck.
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