Taylor Cook

After four years of history we finally closed the chapter on the “Forward 8”. This buck didn’t live on us but would randomly show up a couple times a year. Last year a neighbor watched him chase a doe just before running into the side of a van. The van was pretty messed up and the deer vanished. We just assumed the deer was dead in a fence row somewhere. When the neighbor sent over a video of the buck hitting his mock scrape this year we couldn’t believe it. He must have just laid low from his injuries. He went downhill and his rack went back to a seven point. (What he was as a 2.5 yr old in 2021). Not sure if age caused this or stress from his previous injuries. His nose was definitely broken in the accident. We didn’t give it much thought that he was around because of the history with him. Chances of killing him wasn’t great for us. All that changed when he became a daylight roamer after the lockdown. We caught him in-between does cruising. The beautiful thing about November is it can happen anywhere at any time.