The Story Of POWER LINE 10 - A 4 Year Chase With An Iowa Giant

I just killed him. I just killed him. He came running in from the right. Oh my gosh. I just killed him. Okay. Decent. One. How's this sound? Yeah. One, two, three, four, five. Yeah. Good. Power line. What's so awesome about whitetail hunting is it's so accessible to everyone. In the most majority of the United States, it's the lowest barrier of entry. And there's so many things that hook people. The adrenaline, the camaraderie, the friends, the history with deer. There's so many things that draw people to hunting and power line was pretty much all of those things for me. This year, we think that power line was right around six or seven year olds, probably more like a seven year old. And we've had four years of history with him. And every single year, he pretty much stayed in the same core area, especially during the rut. But even though the amount of trail camera photos of him, we knew where he was. And for almost two straight years, we only saw him one or two times. And it was actually pretty incredible that he lived in such a tight core area. But with a couple guys and a couple different seasons of trying to hunt him, seeing him very, very, very few times. This property that power line called home for the majority of the year, there was a group of guys that really created a lot of camaraderie around him and strategy around him. And quite frankly, teamwork around him, seeing him every single year call this farm home. And finally, as when he hit six years old, put him on the list and have him pretty much be a ghost the entire year. Our good buddy Derek from Matthews last year came out pretty much hunted the whole season and power line was one of the deer that they were after. And I think he sat for 24, 25 different sits only saw power line one time. Had him at 40. 40 something. On that, on a doe. Doe busted us. She ran back, another buck grabbed her and he decided to go the other way. Second afternoon, it switched from a north to a south. Now we have a south wind, but luckily we do have this spot, which has been producing two bucks and like every couple of days they've been in this field here. And then a deer we call power line 10. We're thinking he's five. We have three years of sets of sheds on him. He's a very whole body deer. After having so little encounters with him, I was thinking that we had to have been doing something wrong. We were hunting in the wrong spots. We were coming at it in a different way. So this summer we kind of dialed in a few different setups very specifically just for power line. Where we're at right now is another ditch that power line 10, the deer that we're trying to build a couple little kill spots that are just absolutely dynamite. Historical spots that he's got a vine scrape camera right down here. He was here a bunch last year. To me, this is a great late October spot when this alfalfa is still super green. They're still hammering it. That's step one. Step two is walk around and see if there's anything we missed. Little micro adjustments for deer. It's huge. whole little spot is power line 10 that we're really trying to make a little death trap for. These are power line sheds. We believe, this is again all speculation, but five-year-old set of sheds that are now my rattling antlers, which are perfect rattling antlers. I was thinking that maybe this year we'd actually be able to rattle them in, but we got them before that. This was his last year's set of sheds. It got a little bit of fire damage and a burn, but this was his last year sheds. Very similar to his year prior. Didn't really grow that much, but he did quite a big jump this year for 2024. Power line 10 from last year. He finally showed back up on camera. We've been waiting. Finally, three days ago, he showed back up. Right where the same little ditch that we have been waiting for him to show back in, in the new plot during the Rolling Hills series that we busted out literally to plan to sculpt for power line. He was drinking out of the water hole last night in the daylight. So, this is our boy. We're going in after him tonight. First time, well first time he's been around, but first time going after him. So, he kind of blew up this year too. He's got more mass, more mass and some junk. So, he's definitely bumped up and he's definitely a six plus year old deer. He's five or six this year. So, he's six or seven this year. This is the new plot that we busted out right here and last night, seven, I think seven o'clock, he was drinking out the water hole. We got a photo of him here, a photo of him here, and a photo of him here, all within the last three days. And we're suspecting that he's bedded right, I'm guessing, on this ridge or he might be in this ditch. Chips. We're either going to kill him or bust him out, one or the other. We're going to ride all the way to the ditch and then we're going to slot, we're going to, remember when you were a kid and you'd fly down the edge of the driveway and you'd slam on the brakes and you would slide. Fishtail, that's what we're going to do down into the ditch so that we can just get a quick, it's like quick down and out, down and out. You can do that, I'm not going to do that. October 15th. Closed on my farm today. It'd be kind of cool to kill a power line on it. The power line was at that water hole last night in the daylight, 23 yards. Same wind again tonight, pretty much same conditions again tonight. Really good feeling he might do the same thing. Kind of on pins and needles, so we'll see. This is the new spot, the new food pot we busted out in the summer. New stand, new everything. This is just like overgrown grass and trees and it's kind of, it's a micro little kill plot right before. It's a big old bean field, alfalfa field up top, so just transition, bump in, go to the big fields is what they're doing. We'll see. Hopefully we can get it done tonight, October 15th. That's all I got. October 22nd. We're getting, we're getting in the good, the good time of year. Going to slip out today, back after power line. Just got back from Louisiana a couple days ago for Austin Chamberlain foundation hunt, so a little warm today, but you never know. We're going to go slip in the stand. Up in the stand we call middle ditch. It's a, it's a spot we hung when we were out here for like rolling hills week when we did that little series. The big plot that we busted out in that series is just north of here, about three, four hundred yards, and power line 10 has been on this middle ditch camera several times when we were gone in Louisiana, so it's kind of high anticipation along with the new plot. He's kind of been back and forth, but this setup we kind of strategically set it up with stacking a bunch of hay bales, maybe a hundred yards of hay bales that kind of helps our access and helps direct the deer a little bit. There's big alfalfa fields up on this ridgetop and all throughout the year when they cut the alfalfa and made hay bales, we transported them down next to the switchgrass just to help steer the deer a little bit and to help have better access and cover. We were able to squeeze right between the switch and those hay bales on the way out of here tonight. If there's any deer in the alfalfa we'll be able to rip out of there on the e-bike super fast, but we planted some brassicas in here and they absolutely hammered them, so we had to come back through and we just drilled some rye. The rye's coming up. There's still some brassicas in here, but they just kind of been nibbling on this as they head out to the alfalfa and this spot definitely throughout November I think it's going to get worse and worse just because that alfalfa is going to become less and less desirable, so probably going to be hunting here or the new plot tomorrow also. We'll see. It's just a matter of time before you eventually slip up with this deer like he's living right here off of this ridge or up in one of these fingers, so we got a west wind, west-northwest wind today, pretty perfect. Switchgrass in front of us, little pinch right here, switchgrass behind us, big food, bedding, food, just textbook transition tucked up in this giant oak tree. Chill out tonight, solo filming tonight, right in front of me, power line at 30 yards. I just killed him. I just killed him. I had no cameras running. I just killed him. I have not seen a deer. I've not seen a deer all day and I was just sitting on my phone and I heard running. He came running in from the right. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't get him on film. It's funny, it's like everything revolves around filming, revolves around capturing, revolves around storytelling and for one of my largest deer ever, the one with the most story, the one that we've been trying to kill to not get on film is kind of like, it's almost kind of like a reset that, you know, I'm doing this, we're doing this because we all love bow hunting and we all love the sport of it and everything that comes with it, the camaraderie, the conservation, the the full, the full picture, not just the one moment and I think this deer really reset me on that of like, this is, this is larger than, than just shooting a deer. Well, I'm gonna get down and it sucks so bad that we didn't get this on film but I'm a hunter first and instincts take over and it was just, it was a now or never and he was gonna be left of these branches and that was gonna be it and it's just a perfect story for this deer. This is the deer that we made the stand for, that we made the new plot for, that we did the rolling hills series for. We've had three years of history, three sets of matching sets of sheds off of this deer. He's seven plus years old. It's so bittersweet that we didn't get him on video and I know you guys are gonna say it's my job and, you know, need to have a camera guy and it's just, everyone was tied up today and I wanted to go hunting. Bittersweet. It's so funny because even me watching YouTube videos, I get so disappointed when I watch the whole video and there's no kill shot. I don't really care at this point because this is a giant deer, seven-year-old deer, probably my second biggest bow kill. I don't even know what to say. Stand and he came flying, flying down here and he stopped right here. I'm pretty sure he's just smoked, but you never know, especially not being able to re-watch the footage. That's gonna haunt me for a while, but it's all right. Right there, looks like good blood. No, he just came running down here. Blood still everywhere. I see him guys. Oh, the story of Powerline's done. He's laying up, probably went 100 yards. There he is. Six or seven-year-old, this monarch. Oh my gosh. I get so stressed out about this stuff, guys. I don't think anyone realizes it. It's always a weird perspective too. It's like something greater always tells me, always shows me somehow, humbles me so hard. I think I got everything figured out and you just don't, just don't. You get it all sorts of ways and you never have anything figured out, ever. Every season, just in life in general. You just gotta open mind and be positive and have good friends and the deer come and go. You get them on film, you don't get them on film. Just have fun. That was fun. My dream hunt, time and time again, is exactly what just happened. Exactly.