This past year, the Driven team acquired a new property close to home here in Minnesota. We spent endless hours this summer, scouting, planning, putting in Evolved food plots and hanging our Big Game and Muddy stands in preparation for the whitetail season.
We spent a lot of time in the tree during the archery season and had some extremely close encounters with some of the top deer on our hit list, but just never could close the deal.
In Minnesota, the first weekend in November marks the opening of the statewide firearm season. I can tell you that I will never forget my first time at deer camp, and bet that everyone who has grown up around hunting can appreciate the memories and traditions that are encompassed by “opening weekend at deer camp.”
Jim and Susan, Nicole’s mom and dad, headed up from Illinois for the weekend family hunt, and all of the kids were fired up to say the least.
The plan was for Pat to sit with Carson, Nicole with Olivia, an Papa Jim with Isabel. Cole was going to stay back with Nana Susan and hold down the fort and make some chili and other food for everybody to come in and warm up to.
The TC was locked and loaded, and Nicole and Olivia were ready for a big opening morning buck to show up!
The first morning was cold and super windy, so after sitting for a few hours, we packed it in and headed back to camp to warm up, grab some lunch and regroup before the afternoon.
The afternoon hunt turned out to be more productive. We saw a lot of deer, but unfortunately just not the right ones.
Turns out, our neighbor and good friend Celene Holst had some awesome opening day luck!
This is a deer that we were very familiar with, and the top deer on Pat’s hitist. We had knick-named him Lucky because he had what looked like a perfect bullet hole through one of his ears.
Congratulations to Celene on an awesome deer and the buck of a lifetime. We guessed that this buck will score right around 175” as a clean ten pointer.
After visiting with the neighbors and checking out Celene’s buck that night, we got back to camp just as Nana Susan was pulling a huge ham out of the oven. Pat’s mom, Carol, and step dad Mikael came to meet everyone for a big family dinner.
The next day we headed back out to the stand, and again saw a pile of deer. That evening, just as the sun was starting to go down, a buck that we called Curveball appeared at the edge of the cornfield in front of Carson.
He cocked his TC Encore muzzleloader and settled the crosshairs on the buck at about 100 yards. Smoked him!
Carson had a close encounter at just 15 yards with this buck just a couple weeks prior with his bow so this was an extra special redemption kill for him.
The rest of the crew heard the news, and came to help Carson recover this awesome buck. This was a perfect ending to a great weekend. Spending time in the outdoors with our family is what we love the most. This weekend was all about the laughs, the love, and the camaraderie of being together as a family. We are truly blessed.
The next week, the kids had to head back to school, but with a major cold front rolling in and snow coming, Nicole knew the big bucks would have to be on their feet. She headed to the same blind where Carson shot his deer and had the pink TC Encore Muzzleloader ready to rock.
She had, editor, Adam Helwig with her running the camera, and deer started to pile out into the corn field in front of them not long after they got setup. They had a few smaller bucks and does in front of them, when a wide heavy 10 pointer stepped out at the other end of the field.
We had just gotten some recent Eyecon pictures of this deer so we knew he was in the area and figured we would have a good chance of harvesting him with the cold temperatures and snow.
Nicole made a perfect shot, and the deer took off, running right under them before tipping over just behind the blind.
Slipping him out nice and quiet with our Polaris EV.
All of the hard work and preparation that we put into this new property is paying off. 2 big bucks on the ground, and I have a feeling you will be seeing a few more pictures coming soon. Stay tuned!