A Hunter’s Dream Realized

Trophy Illinois Deer Harvested by Tennessee Man

The 2022 deer season started with a bang for Blake Rice, president of TSS Shot when he harvested a Tennessee velvet buck. Next on his list – a big Illinois buck. According to Rice, an avid big game hunter, Illinois is the place to harvest huge deer, so he decided to spend the fall chasing big bucks. His 2022 goal was to bag a trophy-class animal.

After researching guides and hunting locations, Rice chose to hunt with Land of Lincoln Outfitters and Rubenacker Farms. He chose them because of the mass amount of land they farm and the hunting access they offer. 

He started hunting on opening day—October 1. After several days of scouting and hunting, he narrowed his search to one farm in Hamilton County, Illinois. Over the next month, he hunted 27 times on this farm and narrowed his quarry down to three shooter bucks. Any of these beautiful animals would make his season. 

“I had planned to hunt hard the first week of November. However, the weather turned scorching, and the deer stopped moving. So, I returned to Georgia knowing that regardless of the weather, I wanted to be back hunting on Nov. 8th, said Rice. 

According to Boone and Crockett, more deer are harvested on November 8th than on any other day of the year. It’s a peak day for does to come into estrous. “I’ve always had good luck on this day,” added Rice. This year, the week of November 8th was a full moon. An old wives’ tale says deer move at night, but studies show that these bucks tend to move in the evening. Ignoring the moon, Rice planned an evening hunt to bring him his trophy.

He returned to Hamilton County two moons before the targeted date. The following morning, he saw two of the shooter bucks he had heard about but couldn’t get a good sightline on either one of them. The same was true that afternoon. Time was ticking, and he was getting anxious as he saw the date on his phone switch to the golden day of November 8th. He wondered, “Am I ready?” So far, things hadn’t gone according to plan. 

Ready or not, it was the morning of Tuesday the 8th, and conditions looked promising. He spied a big eight-point he hadn’t seen before. It was apparent the big ones were starting to move. Unfortunately, Rice continued to run into obstacles that prevented him from getting a shot. 

In need of a better strategy. He called his friend, Conner Deweese, to see if he had a deer decoy. 

“My thought process was to put a decoy in the field to narrow down the bucks and try to get them to enter the field,” said Rice. Would it work? He wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that a change was needed, and time was running out.

The Clock was Ticking… Noise, Commotion and Wind.

Fortunately, Deweese answered the call. He rushed home from his job in nearby Evansville, IN, to grab his Dave Smith buck decoy and met Rice back at the farm at 3:15 p.m. Already a little behind schedule, Rice moved stands while waiting for Deweese to arrive. The wind had changed, so this would likely be where Rice would hunt the remainder of the week. Because he had been hunting out of a Tethered tree saddle, he decided he should clear out better shooting lanes. 

The noise this would make worried him, but feeling it was worth the risk, Rice started up the chainsaw and got to work. A few minutes later, Deweese arrived, and the men set up the decoy and stacked the cut tree limbs at the edge of the field. After making a lot of commotion with the saw, decoy, truck, etc. Deweese gave him the thumbs up and rolled out. As Rice waved goodbye, he checked his watch. It was 3:45 pm. 

All Set Up. Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Rice gathered his gear and had barely settled into the tree stand when he noticed deer starting to move around the edge of the field. He was caught off guard as it had only been about 10 minutes since Deweese took off. Around 4:10 pm, the big nine-point he’d been hunting the day before showed up at the end of the field about 350 yards away. Rice quickly gave his Bone Collector game call a few rattles and a snort wheeze. The big nine started coming his way. 

“The last time I ranged at him, he was at 81 yards and approaching the decoy. Then, he stops and looks right. “I was confused about what the buck was looking at, and then, the buck and I saw the flash at the same time. A neighboring landowner drives up, stops his truck, gets out, and lifts his binoculars to look at my deer,” said Blake as he shook his head in disbelief. As he watched what he believed to be his dream buck run off, he decided to get down and end his hunt—this season had been one frustration after another. Had he shot too high to harvest a trophy-worthy buck? After a few frustrating moments, he shook it off. He had invested too much to quit now. He changed his mind and decided to stick it out. 

Tick Tock

Right around sunset, a big eight-point walked into the field of a neighboring property. Rice once again grunted and added a few snort wheezes, but the buck dipped back into the woods. The negative thoughts began creeping back into his mind. Maybe this just wasn’t his day, and perhaps he scared the animal off by calling. Then, Rice noticed the deer dipping back into the woods. The buck circled below the stand and back to the decoy. When the animal was approximately 120 yards from the decoy, Rice decided it was better to try to call him in rather than not and started snort-wheezing. It didn’t work; the eight-point wouldn’t budge and was staring at something. Rice repositioned himself for a better shot, hoping he could lure the animal in. As he settled in, he looked up towards the neighboring field, and in amazement, he saw what had stopped the eight-pointer in his tracks. He was staring at what had to be the biggest buck he’d ever seen. 

“I quickly forgot about the eight-point behind me and grunted at the bigger buck on the neighboring property. As soon as I got my 3rd grunt out, I looked up and realized he was running directly at me and didn’t stop until he was at the base of my tree. I’m looking directly between my legs at the buck under me as he grunt roars!” smiled Rice. 

Rice, tethered to a tree, eyes wide, staring between his legs at his dream buck; he was full of emotions. He was quickly losing daylight; he finally had his trophy buck in sight but couldn’t take the shot! He couldn’t even shake his head in disbelief, let alone breathe for fear of spooking him—but then again, maybe he did need to spook him. After all, he needed him to move just a little bit out from under and away from the stand. Before he could finish the thought, the deer took two steps back, turned to see the decoy on the fence line, and jumped the fence, landing directly on the limbs Rice had cut nearly an hour earlier.

“As he’s thrashing around in the limbs, I’m trying to figure out at what angle I can get a shot.” He emerged from the brush and began walking directly at the decoy. “I came to full draw. The decoy was sitting just 18 yards from my tree.” As he stepped into the field, he walked parallel to the deer decoy. “I let my Matthews bow and Iron Will Broadhead do the work at seven yards.”

The giant buck swirls and runs over the hill. Rice explained, “I never heard him reach the wood line because, as all hunters know, thoughts were racing through my head…

Did I make a good shot?

Did the deer fall? 

How far did he run? 

Please let it have been a good, clean shot.

Should I track him now or later?”

Everything happened so fast; he had never seen that buck before and wasn’t sure which one he shot. “I just knew it was a massive mature deer. I sat in the stand for about an hour and then went to my truck,” continued Rice.

After returning to the lodge, he tried to explain to Robert Rubenacker and Levi Wilson what the deer looked like. Then, Wilson looked at Rubenacker and said, “Blake just shot THE deer.” At that point, Rice asked, what deer? Wilson held up a trail cam photo on his phone and said, “You just shot a 200-inch deer!”

“At this point, I really got nervous, wondering if I had really made a good shot, knowing I might have just killed the biggest deer I would ever shoot,” added Rice. They waited two more hours and decided it was time to go look for the deer. 

With a camera crew in tow, they started their search. They first saw the blood trail and then spotted the arrow. It was determined Rice had made a lung shot and knew the big buck couldn’t have gone far. 

“As we started looking and didn’t see any more blood, I wondered if we should back out and come back in the morning with a dog,” said Rice. But then, Rubenacker shined his light about 50 yards in front of Rice to show him the monumental deer lying on the ground.

“I immediately ran to put my hands on the largest deer I’d likely ever experience. The excitement was overwhelming. As tears streamed from my eyes, I realized all my hunting dreams had just come true,” Rice beamed.

As the next few days ensued, Rice heard stories from hunters about the “One that always got away” and was shown his sheds from the last few years. “It’s amazing how much a deer of this size has impacted the hunting community. The stories I’ve heard about this deer have been as important to me as the experience of harvesting it,” he added.

The deer green scored 206 and 1/8 inch! It has been determined that he was 8 ½ years old.

Blake Rice set a goal for his 2022 hunting season and managed to pull it all together. He is waiting to hear if this was indeed an Illinois record; regardless, it was Rice’s buck of a lifetime.