trail cameras and had been running, just blowing like crazy. “I usually hunting it on weekends. Whenever she did, he took three hunt on He attends Arkansas State steps back into my opening.” transition University as an agriThe deer still ran about business major; he was 150 yards, Sullivan said, from food coming home on weekends before dropping. to bed, but throughout bow season to Sullivan guessed the deer was claim his long-sought prize. 7 1/2 years old. He had found this time it What he calls a perfect last year’s sheds that measured was during morning for bow hunting — roughly 193 inches. a sunny, clear and crisp fall I knew what I had ’cause I had the rut day — arrived Nov. 15. been watching him. It was more and he was “I usually hunt on transition of a bittersweet moment really chasing a from food to bed, but this time because that’s all I’ve been doing it was during the rut and he was for the last three years is hunting hot doe.” chasing a hot doe,” he said. “I was him and trying to kill him, and when in the middle of the woods where I I finally killed him it was like a weight know that they rut. lifted off my shoulders, because I finally “I run trail cameras on our whole got it done,” Sullivan said. property and I watch him pretty much all year He said the hardest part of hunting the deer was round … He’s pretty much nocturnal except during the rut. not telling anyone about it the past three years. “This During the rut was the only time I could catch him in the year I wouldn’t even send my dad a trail camera picture daylight. The last two years, I had seen him and he had because I didn’t want him showing it to anybody,” he said. just skirted a 60-yard circle around me. That was too far Sullivan said he hasn’t hunted with a gun in several years. to shoot with my bow. This year he came in.” He brought down an 8-point with a bow last season. His The buck was just 28 yards away and well within aim is to only hunt mature deer, such as this one in 2013. Sullivan’s comfort zone with the bow among thick woods. “It’s not going to change anything,” he said about his “He stood at 35 yards for 40 minutes, and I had to Boone & Crockett record book qualifier at 42 measured just stand there for 40 minutes in my stand before I got inches over the minimum. “I still love deer hunting and the shot. I wasn’t drawing the bow, just standing. He I’m going to kill a mature deer. It’s not so much about the decided to start walking towards me. When I drew my size as the maturity. If a deer is old or to his peak, I’m bow back, the doe that was with him saw me and took off going to kill him. That’s how this deer was.”
Ryan Sullivan is the 2014 Big Buck Classic overall winner.
Young Cooper Cannon had a big day.
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