December 12, 2022
By Josh Honeycutt

Midwest Land Group Land Agent Sam Vedvei hunts in South Dakota, and this season he shot a large, 200 6/8-inch prairie whitetail in a wide-open setting. The 7 1/2-year-old monarch wasn’t one he anticipated to shoot, however he’s certain glad he did. Searching since he was 12 years previous, and all the time hoping for an enormous deer, this was a dream come true.

With two years of historical past, it’s an unimaginable method to finish the journey. Vedvei had three path digital camera photographs of the buck final season, and 5 this yr. By no means a daylight picture, although. He didn’t suppose the deer was spending numerous time on the household farm he’d hunted for 19 years. Nonetheless, he had hope.

On Oct. 18, he was rewarded for it. With 40-degree highs, the situations had been proper. Searching in flat, open floor filled with ag and never a lot timber, he solely had a pair locations to sit down. He selected a tree he thought would work.

Because the afternoon solar burned decrease within the horizon, the motion remained gradual. Not a deer moved. In reality, he’d sat there 4 earlier sits with out seeing a deer. Then, with taking pictures mild waning, a twig snapped. Vedvei turned to see antlers sticking up out of the grass. It was him.

The deer walked all the best way to inside 25 yards, stood broadside and posed for the shot. Vedvei drew again, settled in and despatched it. The arrow struck barely again at the back of the lung and liver area. The deer spun and ran proper again the place he got here from.

About three hours later, Vedvei returned to seek for the deer. He blood-trailed it by way of the tall grass and right into a small patch of timber. Finally, he reached a dust highway, and located the buck mendacity within the ditch beside it. In complete, the deer went about 400 yards.

“This deer is unimaginable,” Vedvei says. “I’m nonetheless somewhat in disbelief that I used to be the one to kill it. These alternatives don’t come by fairly often. It’s surreal to see a deer of that caliber on the hoof. It’s a testomony to being accustomed to the deer and realizing how they journey and reply to the world. I didn’t sample the deer, however I patterned the deer within the space.”