It was cloudy and mild on Nov. 23, the opening day of Wisconsin’s firearms season, with temperatures around 40 degrees. The wind was light, and Alexander Welk was settled in a treestand on 40 acres of private land in northeast Wisconsin. Welk had seen a couple deer earlier that morning as they walked along the nearby cedar swamp.
“It was almost noon, usually the slow time of day for deer hunting,” Welk tells Outdoor Life. “But I heard a splash back in the swamp. Then a twig snapped loudly. Next, I saw some movement in some thick cover. Then I spotted a deer.”
The deer had a tall rack that Welk recognized immediately. He’d been after the same buck for the last two months after getting trail cam photos of it in September. Welk hunted hard through archery season and spent what he thinks was around 200 hours pursuing the buck. But he hadn’t seen the big 14-pointer, which he nicknamed Freak Show, until now.
“I grabbed my rifle, put the scope crosshairs on him and waited for him to get into a shooting lane,” says Welk, a 32-year-old electrician from Little Chute. “He stepped into the lane but turned toward me walking. I didn’t have a broadside shot at him until he was 70 yards out.”
With the buck in range, Welk slowly squeezed the trigger of his Tikka T3X 300 Winchester Magnum. The buck jumped, then turned and ran into the swamp, where Welk heard the deer fall. But when he got down from his tree and walked to where the buck was standing when he shot, he couldn’t find any blood.
“There was no way I missed him, so I walked where he went into the swamp,” says Welk. “I found some muddy water in the swamp, and some broke branches on trees. I went another 10 yards and found a blood trail, and I found him lying in some long grass.
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After field dressing the deer, Welk started the trek out of the swamp. He dragged the estimated heavy buck for roughly 200 yards, wading through cold water that was a foot deep in places. He finally reached a spot where he could get his truck. He heaved the buck into it and drove home, where his family was anxious to see the buck he’d spent so much time pursuing.
Welk says the buck was looking lean after the rut. Its rack has 14 total points and an inside spread of 20 5/8 inches. Welk has not tried to score it yet, but he plans to have it scored when his taxidermist makes a shoulder mount.
“I’d spent so much time hunting Freak Show that when I finally got him it was like living a dream,” Welk says. “I hunted every weekend for him, and I let a lot of other smaller bucks go by … and I never saw him in the day until the gun season opener. He was the buck I really wanted, and it’s like living a fantasy now that I got him.”
