Had pictures of this buck starting on October 18th. From then on we started getting almost nightly photos of him. Completely nocturnal. As the days got closer to the rut he would start appearing at around 8:30 pm-1 11:30 pm. On November 3rd I got out of school early and raced home to try and get into the woods. I hung my climber back deep In The swamp where I had been seeing rutting activity the past few years. It was a perfect night, or so I thought. The pressure was high and was high 30’s low 40’s just before a cold front. I didn’t see a single deer until about 6:00pm. Two small does popped out at 65 yards and I didn’t even think to look behind them because of their size. I continued to look around the swamp and then peaked back over to them to see a large bodied deer just behind them emerging from the thick brush. I put up my rangefinder and instantly knew he was a shooter (I didn’t look at him enough to recognize what buck he was). The does began down the trail at 50 yards and knew this was going to be the shot I had been waiting for all year. I ranged exactly where I thought he would step out and got ready. He walked into the opening, i grunted, he heard it, and then I shot. As soon as I let the arrow go I knew it was going to be about 6 inches back. Although I grunted to stop him he didn’t fully stop. He carried though as I shot and hit him back. He ran 10 yards, stopped, and then ran off (hurting). I knew it was going to be a kill shot but I also knew it was going to take time. (This was the first time I had ever had to let a deer sit for more than 2 hours). I went back home to get my dad and we tracked him about 2 and a half hours later. As we tracked him we got decent blood at times and then it slowed down. About 50 yards into the track I began to hear a deer walking in the water, so I knew it was time to back out. I went back in the morning to search for him, but couldn’t find him. The worst part of it all was I even found his bed. I searched for 3 hours by myself. I ended up calling a deer tracker and we went after him. His dog picked up the trail and off he went. We started finding blood and even parts of the deers interestines. (At first I was terrified he was taken by coyotes). We walked through at times 2 feet of water and muck through the thickest crap you could imagine. It was terrible. We eventually got to dry land and found pools of blood. All of a sudden the dog when crazy. Keep in mind I have no idea what or how big my buck was. The tracked said “oh my god there he is”! I couldn’t see the buck from where I was. I asked if he was dead. “No……”, he said. We couldn’t believe this buck was still alive with then amount of blood lose we found and couldn’t believe he actually made it as far as he did. Now, Go back 45 minutes when the tracker got to me, he told me don’t bring my bow because either this deer was dead or it would be just fine, so I left my bow back at the tree where I had shot him from. I ran though the swamp triping over submerged trees and through thick brush. I ended up getting lost and had to use my phone to get back to my bow. By the time I got back to where the tracker was (he backed off the buck but marked where he saw him) it was over an hour. I nocked an arrow and got ready to dispatch the buck. As we crept up on the buck he was laying on his side. I got small glimpses of him as I got closer realizing how big he really was. I got up to him and put another arrow exactly in the heart and it was over in 10 seconds. I truly felt terrible about it. It was a first time and hopefully last time I will ever have to do that. It took me 5 hours to drag him back to the field where I could get help to load him into my truck. I was in the woods from 8:30am- 6:58pm when I looked at my phone when it was all over. This is a buck I will remember for the rest of my life and couldn’t be more excited to hang him on my wall!