I just dropped Pete Angle of Under Armour off at the Oklahoma City Airport yesterday after a great week of bow hunting and good times in Northwestern Oklahoma.  Jordy and I left a few days before opening day of the Oklahoma archery season to meet up with my good friend and host of Buckventures Outdoor TV show, Jeff Danker to do some scouting at his ranch he calls the River Mesa.  We spent several days scouting and watching deer from atop a mesa that overlooked some huge alfalfa fields so we could put a plan together for opening day.  We saw hundreds of deer each day and by the time Pete arrived, we had several nice, mature bucks located.  Danker and I went in mid-day and hung several “sets” in places we felt like we could get bow shots at some of the nice bucks we had pin-pointed, so all that was left now, was to get our gear ready and be in the stands an hour before daylight on opening morning!

Our first day of hunting was uneventful to a certain extent.  Although we saw a few bucks, the high winds and warm weather had the mature bucks layed up, but it was great to be back in the stand again after such a long spring and summer.  As night fell, so came with it a cold front and as Jordan & I got set up the next morning, we found ourselves in prime conditions with the temperature having dropped to 38 degrees and the winds almost non-existent.  Jordan prompted me once there was enough camera light to give an intro to the hunt and as I was talking to Jordan about our setup, I look across the river and see several nice bucks on the opposite bank getting ready to hopefully head in our direction.  A couple of small bucks ventured across first and right behind them was a beautiful looking 10pt.  As they worked closer I was able to see that the 10pt was a younger deer, probably a 3 year old, so I made a decision to pass on him.  No sooner than Jordan filmed the 10pt for a few mins, I see a big bodied, mature 9pt walking across the river on the same trail as the deer that had just been in bow range of us for the past 15 minutes.  As if the buck had “read the script”, he walked right towards us and got to within 30 yards.  Once Jordy whispered to me that he was on him with the camera, I drew back, stopped the 9pt and let one fly!  Immediately, I knew I had hit him a lil higher and back than I would have liked, but a lethal shot nonetheless!  Jordan and I both were fired up as it was our first “kill on camera” together, but just to make sure we didn’t try and recover the deer immediately and so we climbed down to go tell Jeff and Pete what we had done and see if they had any luck that morning.  Jeff and Pete didn’t get anything, so all attention turned to my encounter that morning and after we ate some lunch, Jeff, Jordy and I went out to see if we could recover my buck.  We didn’t find much blood and actually lost blood after 150 yards or so and couldn’t find him the rest of the afternoon.  The country up in Northwestern Oklahoma is pretty tough and it’s really difficult finding blood, so we had to wait and hope that the coyotes or buzzards would help us locate where the buck had expired.

A day went by with no luck and then on the second afternoon after I had shot, Mikey Miller (BC cameraman) spotted a large group of buzzards circling in the vicinity of where we had last found blood!  We decided we would hunt the next morning and then go try and locate my buck.  The next morning was uneventful for Jordy and myself, but Jeff and his cameraman Brandon Adams smacked an awesome 10pt so everybody celebrated and helped Jeff recover his buck.  After taking some pics with Jeff’s deer and watching footage of his kill back at camp, Jeff and Brandon along with Mikey went into town to check his buck in and Pete, Jordy and I went out in search of my buck.  As we got over to where I had last found blood the day I shot, we began looking where we had last seen the buzzards circling and less than 5 minutes of looking had gone by when Pete hollers to me that we found him!  I couldn’t believe it, the buck hadn’t was only about 50 yards from where we had last found blood the day I shot.  The carcass was pretty much gone and I’m sure was ample bounty for the coyotes and buzzards, but the  rack was still in pristine shape and I was one happy hunter!  Pete ended up heading back to Baltimore with a tag still in his pocket, but we all had a great time in and around camp and seeing Jeff and Brandon for the first time in quite awhile was great as well.  All in all it was an awesome opening week at Jeff’s place in Oklahoma! I can’t wait to get back someday soon and hunt the River Mesa.

Now I’ll be heading up even farther to the Northwest in Oklahoma to meet Chipper and Rochey at their new ranch.  I’ll scout a couple of days before they arrive and then I’m sure those boys after a full season of baseball are itching to get in a deer stand!  I’m looking forward to seeing them, and I’m confident that they both will get a couple of nice bucks next week!

Here are some pics from our week in NW Oklahoma!

-Matthew Duff October 7, 2009

For all of you people out there that like to see the bucks get commanded…  My name is Greg Sims, (Buckman for Buck Commander).  I am from Conway Arkansas and I love to bow hunt!!!

I met the Buck Commander crew last year in Kansas at Adam LaRoche’s ranch, (the E3).  We have a “gathering” every year at the E3 in November and get after those BIG Kansas whitetails!  A life time friend of mine, Bo Dottley,  is a camera man for BC and he introduced me to them and we hit it off immediately!  All of those guys are like me and they are out there for one thing and that’s to simply have a good time!

Meeting the BC crew also led me into another frenzy last year as you may already know…  I killed a GIANT 193 inch whitetail in Iowa with my bow last year and I did a commercial with the Smart Scouter game camera guys.  If you watch the Outdoor Channel then you have probably seen my ugly mug on this commercial talking about how the Smart Scouter assisted in this kill…what an AWESOME TOOL!!!

[caption id="attachment_111" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Greg's 193" Iowa Bow Buck -2008"][/caption]

This leads me into this year’s first hunt….

I had been back and forth to KS several times this year scouting for that MONSTER of my dreams.  I had several Smart Scouter cameras out and guess what…yep!  I found another giant…or 3!!!  The Smart Scouter cameras were sending me pictures of several different “shooters” so the day before season, me and my trusty camera man, Bo Dottley, headed to KS.

[caption id="attachment_112" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="My #1 Prospect for the 2009 season!"][/caption]

I had my new Athens Buck Commander Bow in tow and I was really anxious to get the first kill on video with it.  This bow is FAST and shoots like a well oiled rifle so I could not wait to fire it at any one of those GIANTS!!!

The weather, mainly the wind and rain, did not cooperate with my plan for the first 2-3 hunts so we kept waiting on the right conditions to hunt my 2 favorite GIANTS.  Finally, on September 22nd, the second afternoon, we had the right conditions/wind direction to hit the hot spot!  We got everything together and headed out.  When we got there, the alfalfa field had several deer in it already and we had to work extra hard getting into the stands…but we pulled it off.

The deer movement on this day was unbelievable.  We had at least 10 different bucks come by and no telling how many does and yearlings came by???  I told Bo that we had seen every deer in the county except the 2 big ones that we were after and that he better get ready…it was going to happen today!!!  I barely got this out of my mouth before hearing Bo say…”there’s your big, short G-2 buck”.  Then the game was ON!  We had several does directly under us and they had us “pegged”…they were looking directly at us!  I told Bo not to film the brute coming to us until he got to 50 yards for fear if he moved the game would be over due to the does looking directly at us.  When he got to 50 yards, I told Bo to get on him.  As he slowly moved, I drew back my bow and the does BLEW UP!  The buck stopped, turned broad-side and the rest is HISTORY!

I will tell you this, if you have a chance to meet ANY of the Buckmen or anyone associated with Buck Commander…DO SO!!!  We are all just GOOD OLE BOYS HAVIN’ TOO MUCH FUN!!!

KILLINGLY,
Greg Sims