MINI-MAG

By: Brennen Nading (@nadingbr)

Brennen Nading - Iowa - October 16, 2022

The story of "Mini-Mag" began back in 2017 when he became a regular on the trail cameras. At that time I assumed that he was 3.5 years old. Although young, he was a heck of a deer and showed a lot of potential to be something special if he reached maturity. With hundreds of pictures and a handful of encounters, I elected to give him the pass in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, he was now what I figured to be 5.5 and jumped onto the hit list. Only problem was, the landowner had a friend draw a non-resident tag and asked if they could have the farm to themself that season since it took them so long to draw the tag. I obliged and stayed off the farm. "Mini-Mag" survived the 2019 season and I couldn't wait to see what he turned into in 2020 as a 6.5 year old. Sure enough, he showed back up in velvet and he was a true giant, I estimated him to be in the high 180s. After studying trail camera history, I had him narrowed down to an approximate 10 day window when I felt like I had a really good chance of harvesting him. This window was October 25-November 5. Before those dates and after those dates, his movement on the farm was very unpredictable so I knew my window of opportunity was small. Another factor that came into play was that the small area I hoped to kill him, required a north or northwest wind to hunt it without risking bumping him out. As luck would have it, we had south winds for literally 15 days straight from October 25-November 10th. "Mini-Mag" was daylight on several cameras during that window, but all in areas that would have stood an extremely high chance of blowing him out if I had tried to hunt him. Anyway, I began hunting on November 10th when the wind was right and just like years prior, he became unpredictable and I never got an opportunity. The last picture I had of him in 2020 was on December 8th going through a fence gap onto the neighbors. The very next picture from that camera was of the neighbors walking the fence line in blaze orange and guns in hand setting up to do a deer drive. I never had another picture of "Mini Mag" in 2020. 2021 rolled around and I still had hope that he would show back up and do what he had been doing for the past 4 years, but nothing, no sign of him the entire 2021 season. I was beginning to think the worst, he was on someone's wall or laying dead in a ditch somewhere. To my surprise, on September 29th, he showed back up on camera after being gone for nearly 690 days!! It was game on. I knew it was time to get aggressive and hunt him on every cold front that blew in. My maiden voyage would be a 3 day window from October 6-8. I hunted him all 3 nights and saw him 2 out of the 3 nights but couldn't get him in bow range. My next window of opportunity would be October 16-18. On October 16th, we headed in early and hung a new set based on the movements that we had seen on the last cold front. With 15 minutes left of shooting light, the Iowa monarch made his last mistake and walked past our tree at just 20 yards. An unbelievable story for an unbelievable buck. "Mini-Mag" was a true legend on the farm and I am honored to have had the chance to hunt him.