Steven Sturtevant made turning 70 more memorable with a big 11-point buck.
A few days after his 70th in October, on his tree stand, he spotted the buck, one he had hopes of bumping into, coming in from the south with a west wind.
“He was calm, but very alert and didn’t come into my comfort zone for 10 minutes,” Sturtevant emailed. “As he slowly approached my area, he was directly across from me at 24 yards with the wind blowing directly between us. I set the crosshairs on the crease of his left shoulder and squeezed.”
It was a good clean shot with his Ravin crossbow.
“I have been bowhunting for 40 years and never felt the rush I just experienced,” he emailed. “I was totally calm until that point, then I got really rattled.”
He gave the buck some time before calling his hunting partner, hunting another property, and his son to assist with recovery.
“I knew he was too big to handle by myself,” Sturtevant emailed.
That’s the buck I want, “too big to handle by myself.”
The spread measured 23 inches. All three hunters estimated it about 275 pounds on the hoof.
Buck of the Week, the celebration of big bucks and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) from around Chicago outdoors, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times when time is right. The online posting at chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).
