CLICK ABOVE TO HEAR DAVID MILLER TALK ABOUT KILLING HIS BIG BUCK ON W.V. OUTDOORS
JULIAN, W.Va. — There are some guys who have all the luck, but for many successful hunters luck only plays a small part in what it takes to consistently kill big bucks. David Miller of Julian, W.Va. is one of them. Last week, just as the rut was starting to fire up in West Virginia, Miller was in a tree stand in Mingo County and put an arrow through the heart of a mighty monster.
“He had 17 scoreable points,” Miller said during an interview for this past Saturday’s West Virginia Outdoors on Metronews.
If Miller’s name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s not his first rodeo. During the 2018 hunting season, on the opening day of archery season, he took down another wall-hanging buck while hunting in Boone County.
“I can’t believe it. Last year I thought that might be a once in a lifetime deer I took and I was really blessed to get anoher one this year,” he said.
This year, Miller shifted his attention to a place in Mingo County which until now hadn’t really tickled his fancy.
“It was on a property that I had been on a lease for 11 years and I’d never carried my bow on any of that property because I had never seen anything I was crazy about chasing,” Miller explained. “Running cameras this year, I ran across this buck and got one picture of him. I kept looking and looking and finally caught up with him,”
Hunters who have success taking large racked Pope and Young deer in the four bow hunting counties of southern West Virginia spend a lot of time scouting and searching. They also spend a lot of time checking out trail cams which have dramatically changed the game for modern day hunting. Miller is no different and armed with a single picture of the buck, he put his full efforts into getting into the right position.
“We had gone through a drought and I think a lot of acorns on top of the hill were damaged. These deer just weren’t up on the ridges where they normally go during the rut. I got one picture of him, so I knew he was in the area, but I figured if he’s not up here, he has to be down there.”
Miller moved his cameras lower, down into the hollow and started to develop a pattern. He got pictures of the buck along a scrape line and was able to pick out the ambush point.
“I moved to a different location, knowing he was travelling in that direction, and I was able to cut him off,” Miller said.
The buck came into him about 8:30 a.m. and wasn’t the first of the day.
“I had seen a buck about 7:30 come through, he was about 140 inch nine-point, a beautiful deer. But then about an hour later I saw another buck checking the scrape line I was hunting over and it was him. I absolutely couldn’t believe it,” he said.
Miller placed the shot on the deer and was able to track him down about 200 yards away.
It will be the 19th deer Miller hangs on the wall of his man cave. He’s almost to the point of keeping his taxidermist on retainer.
“He does well,” Miller laughed.