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How many times have you heard guys say, “Some hunters have all the luck.” But it may be that hunters who “have all the luck” create their own luck. They work hard at finding good places to hunt, put in for nonresident tags in the best states and research their areas extensively.

Tom Johnson from West Michigan falls into this category. I have written several stories about Johnson over the years because he has a knack for tagging large animals.

The fall of 2008 was no exception. Johnson shot a great elk with his bow in Wyoming that scored well over 300 inches, but his big story from that fall was the monster whitetail he shot in Indiana. Johnson has taken several large bucks in the last 20 years, but his 2008 buck was the deer of a lifetime.

“I enjoy hunting pieces of property that have some type of refuge where deer can go to hide when the hunting pressure increases. This is one of the only ways a buck can reach its full potential,” Johnson said. In 2008, he and a few friends leased a farm in Indiana that was several hundred acres. “We all chipped in to hunt this farm. I bowhunted it hard for eight days in October and the first few days of November. I saw several bucks, but nothing that was worth shooting. I had a tag in another state, so I headed out but planned to come back for the last couple days of the bow season.”

When he returned, everyone in his hunting party was planning on hunting a few days and then hunting other places for the opening of the Indiana gun season. “All of my friends decided to gun hunt different places, so I would be the only one hunting if I stayed a few extra days,” Johnson said. “I had planned to go home after the bow season ended, but the guy who helped manage the property (and didn’t deer hunt) encouraged me to stay for the first few days of gun season.”

The property manager told Johnson that when gun season opens, bucks get pushed onto the farm from adjacent properties where there is plenty of hunting pressure. Johnson had a gun with him and decided to take the property manager’s advice.

“On opening morning, I hunted near a place where we already had a treestand. I saw several deer, including a few bucks, but nothing worth shooting. They were all traveling under another stand I had up, so I decided to get out of the stand I was in and go to the other stand since that was where the action was,” Johnson recalled.

When he saw a break in the action, Johnson quickly got out of his stand and headed for the other one. “I got part way to the other stand, and of course a decent buck appeared. I aimed and shot at him.” Johnson grazed the buck across the belly and it ran off. “I only hit hair, and the buck took off like a streak. I watched where he went, tracked him and later jumped him. He was fine. He went running toward the other end of the property near a subdivision. I decided to hunt near that edge of the property that evening in hopes of catching the buck coming out of the thick marsh nearby to feed.”

That evening, Johnson figured his chances of seeing the buck (or any large buck) were slim because of where he was sitting. “I was so close to the subdivision that I could see people in their yards. I thought to myself that I would never see a buck, but I sat there anyway and hoped for the best,” Johnson said. “As I sat down, I saw kids on an ATV driving around and a guy on a tractor.” The more people Johnson saw and the more noise he heard coming from the subdivision, the more his heart sank. “I planned to wait it out until dark even though I thought I was wasting my time.”

But as luck would have it, Johnson wasn’t wasting his time. About 40 minutes before dark, he saw two deer ease out of the thick cover nearby. “I noticed one of the deer had a very large body, but at first I thought it was a big doe. I saw a large rack when it came out into the open, though, and realized it was a big buck. I figured it was the buck I had shot at earlier, but I was wrong.”

As the buck came into view, Johnson realized he was headed toward a large pile of brush and stumps. “When they cleared the field I was hunting, they made a large pile of stumps that was probably about 40 yards long,” Johnson said. “I knew if he made it to that pile I would have to wait until he walked out from behind it at the far end, and my chances of getting a shot at that point would be slim. So I kept looking through my scope, hoping to get a good shot before he reached the pile.” The buck was about five steps from disappearing behind the pile as he headed for an open field. Johnson found an opening and fired. The buck piled up.

“At this point, I knew it was a big buck but didn’t know how big until I walked up on him,” Johnson said. “I was simply amazed when I looked down at his rack.” The monster buck scored 218 7/8 Boone and Crockett inches. Its rack is impressive in every way with a wide spread, tall tines and unbelievable mass. “The bases of the horns near the brow tines are what impressed me the most. They look like massive branches, not deer antlers,” Johnson said.

The most interesting thing about the buck is that nobody had seen it before Johnson shot it. “After I tagged it, I called the property manager. He wanted to drive the buck around town and show some of the locals who live in and near the subdivision,” Johnson said. “Many of the people who lived in the area feed deer and had seen several large bucks, but none of them had seen the buck I’d shot. I had several scouting cameras on the property the entire time I was there and never got a single picture of him.” The property manager was right. When the gun season opens, all the deer pile onto the property. Since the property sees little hunting pressure, it became a safe haven.

This story goes to show you that big bucks can live anywhere. “I am sure that buck had used the area to escape from the hunting pressure for years. To get as big and as old as he was, he had to be a smart deer. The smart ones know where to go to get away from it all,” Johnson explained. It doesn’t matter if there is a subdivision, shopping mall or Wal-Mart a stone’s throw away. In fact, in some cases deer prefer these locations because they are overlooked by many hunters.

Johnson has been highly successful over the years, and his recipe for success is simple. Scout to find areas that bucks use as refuges from pressure. Hunt extremely hard. Hunt as many days as you can. Johnson owns his own small business, and in the fall he takes off for weeks at a time to hunt. Hunting hard and having time on his side has resulted in several filled tags for him.

“There is no doubt that having a flexible schedule and plenty of time to hunt helps me. I think another important factor is being focused and determined to score until the end,” Johnson said. “I hunt as hard on the last day of my hunts as I do on the first.”

Hunting hard until the very end put this monster on the wall. Many hunters would have gone home after hunting a couple weeks in one area. Instead of doing that, Johnson decided to stay another day and hunt the opener of gun season. The rest, as they say, is history. It just goes to show what a difference a day can make!

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