Big Taco Buck

I killed this busted up 5-pointer, on the first Friday afternoon of southern zone crossbow season, over at my parents place.  We had seen him multiple times that the summer, when he was a fairly tall-tined 6-pointer, feeding in the long clover plot behind their house.  
 

I got to their place about (2) hours before sunset, and I walked back to a natural blind that I had cut into a little patch of brush, near the front of the clover plot. I sat on an upturned 5 gallon bucket, for about an hour.  Something just didn’t “feel right” about it.  I couldn’t get comfortable on the bucket, and the brush was just a little too high to shoot over.  
 

I decided to move to my two-story truck cap blind, about 100 yards into the woods.  I had never taken a deer from that, but it is super comfortable.  I found the upper part loaded with dried leaves.  
 

I put Evercalm on my boots before I walked over, and I wiped some on the blind when I got in up in it. There was a fresh buck scrape, about 20 yards in front of it.  I got down on my knees and scraped the leaves out of the blind, trying to sound like a buck clearing a scrape.  
 

My parents saw me move out of the natural blind.  About 10 minutes after I left, they saw the buck come out of the goldenrod on the far edge, and start feeding on clover in the plot.  
 

Suddenly, it lifted its head and stared into the woods where I was.  Then it trotted into there.  I heard it approaching and I swung  around for a shot in that direction.  I was hidden behind a 3 ft barnwood wall.  
 

It slowed down, as it passed at 20 yards, and I zipped a bolt thru behind its shoulder. It ran off directly towards my parents house.  It made it about half way to the front edge of the woods, and piled up in a heap.  I could hear the crash, about 50 yards away.  
 

It was probably the largest bodied buck that I have ever killed (43-1/4” chest girth), but the busted up rack was nothing special.  I think it was 3.5 years old, based on the skull size.  Our younger daughter named it Taco.  No deer that I killed before or since, made as many of those as that one did, so I suppose it was fitting.