One of many trailcam pictures.

Bucky and his Kansas buck.

Hunter: Bucky Beckham
Cameraman: Tony Glidewell

Kansas deer season is here again. Trail cameras, food plots, and big bucks, when you combine these three things it’s the perfect recipe for fun, excitement, and success. This hunt begins with a phone call from my dad. You could hear the excitement in his voice as he was telling me about all the pictures of good bucks he had down at his ranch. He stopped by my house, pulled out his computer, and we started going through them all. Immediately it was evident that there were two 150 type bucks that were coming through with extreme regularity. One was a big wide 10-pointer and the other was a heavy beamed 11-pointer. After some discussion, Dad told me he would like to have the big ten, and the 11 pointer was branded my buck.

Now, when I say the two bucks were coming in regularly I don’t mean we had 10 or 15 pictures—we had probably close to 200 combined pictures of these two bucks in a 3 week period. I called up Tony (a good friend of mine) and asked if he would be willing to go film me for a weekend. I quickly received a kind yes and away we went.

The first morning the alarm went off at 5 a.m. and I hit what I thought was the snooze. I was wrong, at 6 a.m. my eyes opened and the race was on. By the time we got to our stand at first light, deer were already everywhere. So we backed out and called the morning a waste (not wanting to spook anything.) That evening we went to the stand roughly four hours before dark. And by 4:30 p.m., deer were starting to move. About 6:30 p.m., I heard Tony say, “There he is.” The buck fed on some clover not 25 yards behind me. Believe it or not, the tree we were in was so big, with so many branches; I couldn’t even attempt to pull a shot off. So we watched fully knowing Dad and I had way more pictures in the morning of him than in the evening. So we just had to be patient, his time is coming.

At 5 a.m. the next morning, the alarm went off. This time we got up and got to the stand on time (40 minutes before first light.) Right at the crack of dawn I heard Tony say, “There’s the big ten pointer.” This happened to be one of the bucks my deer was bachelored up with, but no buck! I was looking everywhere when I heard the sounds of acorns being eaten. I looked and found my buck SIX YARDS underneath us. There was nothing we could do with him being so close, other than simply watch and hope he comes back later like the trail camera pictures showed he was doing. Sure enough forty-five minutes later, he came back making a bee line straight for us. This time we were ready for him. My heart sunk when he stopped to eat at six yards on the same bush he ate on earlier that morning. I’ve got no shot and if he goes back when he’s done filling his belly, I’ll have no shot! (Seems like there is a pattern here) but all he has to do is take three more steps and he’s mine forever.

He stood there and ate, and ate, and ate some more (that’s when the buck fever started to take hold!!) Come on just take three more steps. Well God must have decided to answer my prayers. The buck raised his head and took the three steps I needed and stopped perfectly. Trembling I drew back my Hoyt and placed the pin high behind his shoulder and I heard the words I wanted to hear... TAKE HIM!!!! The arrow hit its mark perfect and it was obvious the Spitfire Maxx had done its job; blood immediately was spraying out both holes. Seventy yards later I had my hands on the rack of my best video buck to date.

There is no doubt when you pursue a specific buck and harvest him; it’s a unique feeling of accomplishment that a person never forgets. I want to thank Tony for taking time out of his schedule to come down and capture it on film and especially thank my Dad, Rodnie Beckham. This buck is as much my Dads as it is mine; all I did was squeeze the trigger!