On the 22nd day of October, hunting conditions were a little less than ideal.  Ryan Miller and myself had decided to sit at the Old Car stand.  Ryan was a second year hunter at East Fork from North Carolina.  The year before, Ryan had a successful spot and stalk hunt on an awesome 163” six by five.  Had this big mature buck not have broken off his G-4, he would have been over 170”!  I thought that hunt would have been hard to beat, but on this rainy day in October, I would have a new favorite hunt with Ryan Miller.

We were sitting at the Old Car stand and not seeing much activity.  Fellow guide Jeremy Turner and I had talked about how if he saw anything big enough for Ryan to shoot, he would call me.  Getting close to dark, Ryan and I had not seen much when I received a text message from Jeremy- “Big Buck!”  I gave him a call and he said it was a big forked G-2 buck that we had seen in September.

Ryan and I were instantly on a mission making a mad dash to the plum thicket stand.  The wind was perfect for a stalk being out of the North- Northwest.  Ryan and I snuck up the west side of a really long draw.  As soon as  we got close to where we should have been, I told Ryan to hang tight and catch his breath while I snuck up to a lone hay bale to see if I could see the buck.  I spotted him and called for Ryan to come.  Unfortunately, all we could see was his head and rack, which was not enough for an ethical shot.  We then decided to move to another stack of hay bales to get a better shot.
The giant buck grossed 176, an awesome whitetail.  What looked like an uneventful evening hunt on a bad day, turned out to be one of the most memorable hunts that I have been on at the East Fork Ranch.   Many thanks to Ryan and all the other spectacular hunters that came to the ranch for memorable hunts of their own.  Hope to see all of you again next year!