560 Inches of Antlers – An Unforgettable Season
By Scott Bestull
Roger Sapper is too humble to call himself king of anything, but the Iowa whitetail expert could rule any discussion about the importance of clover in a deer management plan. Sapper has owned his Iowa farm for seven years, and the property has produced some tremendous bucks in that time. In fact, including this past season he has killed nine bucks that score over 160inches. The property has no high fences and the deer are free ranging. Sapper is obviously a gifted hunter and savvy land manager, but he credits much of his success to his food plot seed choice.
“Clover is king in my book,” he said. “It’s the cornerstone for all my food plot plans.” Although readers of this magazine have no shortage of testimonials to ponder regarding Imperial Whitetail Clover and other Whitetail Institute products, Sapper’s thumbs-up deserves special attention. This past fall, Sapper put his tag on three exceptional bucks, all taken on a relatively small property where Whitetail Institute products played a significant role. Here’s his amazing story.
Unforgettable Season
Before exploring the nuts and bolts of how Sapper manages land and hunts whitetails, it’s worthwhile to shine a light on his incredible season last year. Going into fall, Sapper was determined to devote most of his hunting effort to a buck he’d named “Tomahawk,” a 200-class B&C giant the Hawkeye State hunter knew well.
“I had hundreds of pics of that buck over a four-year span,” Sapper said. “I don’t start keeping pics of a buck until he’s at least 2-1/2 years old, so I knew Tomahawk was at least six years old last fall.”
Sapper’s target buck was not only gigantic. He was also eerily predictable.
“He actually lived in a patch of timber right behind my house,” Sapper said with a laugh. “My farm is a mix of thick brush and cedars, farm fields, food plots and hardwood ridges. Tomahawk liked this patch of blackberry brush that was so thick you could hardly walk into it, much less through it. He’d bed up there, and adjacent to that thicket was an Imperial Whitetail Clover plot, and beyond that a cornfield. I had two cameras set up for him; one pointed into the clover plot, the other into the timber, overlooking some scrapes.”
Sapper’s cameras captured dozens of pics of Tomahawk, many of them in daylight.
“When our season opened Oct. 1, I had a game plan in place, which was to hunt him over the clover,” Sapper said. “But I needed a southwest wind in order to do that, and we don’t get a lot of that here in the fall. So, I kept studying pictures, and I realized that, on a northwest wind, Tomahawk would be on his feet an hour before dark, feed in the clover and then head toward the corn. That’s when I knew I had to change my setup because I couldn’t hunt the clover plot with a northwest wind.”
Fortunately, Sapper knew how to do that.
“I have a Redneck blind that I’ve mounted on a grain cart that I can tow just about anywhere,” Sapper said. “So I hauled it to the edge of that cornfield. There’s a little finger of brush and cedar trees that runs up into that corn, so I parked the blind right at the tip of that finger and then mowed a little path around the edge of the corn.”
Though Tomahawk had a relaxed personality and wasn’t afraid of daylight travel, killing him was anything but easy.
“I sat there every day the wind was right and never saw him,” Sapper said. “Finally. on Oct. 25, I got lucky. The sun had just hit the treetops, and the wind was just still. I happened to look out and saw some milkweed fluff drifting right toward where I thought he’d come from, so I just shut down all the windows and prayed my scent wouldn’t get out and spook him. About 10 minutes later, I looked up, and he was coming right to me. He walked to within 15 yards of the blind before I knew it, and now I had to get those windows opened up without him seeing or hearing that, and then get a shot.
“Somehow I pulled it off. Tomahawk was so close. I remember coming to full draw and then double-checking to make sure my arrow wouldn’t hit the bottom of the blind window. I looked through my peep at the deer, and then pulled my face away to look at the broadhead and see if it would clear. Finally, I settled in, took a deep breath and took the shot. I could see right off I’d made a good hit, and Tomahawk ran off about 60 yards before tipping over. It was pretty amazing, walking up to see him lying there after seeing all those pictures and dreaming about it for months. Tomahawk scored 202 inches.
But Sapper was far from finished. The farm held two other monster bucks that were on his radar, and one of them — a giant he’d named “Tilt-Up” — was also getting active on trail cam.
“Tilt-Up” actually loved that same clover plot that Tomahawk did, but I think Tomahawk was a little more dominant and pushed him out,” Sapper said. “I had cameras on the other end of the farm, where logging road comes down a hardwood ridge close to a bedding area. Bucks love to scrape on that road, and when I checked my camera, Tilt-Up was back there in daylight, hitting scrapes.”
So, Sapper hitched up his Redneck blind setup, hauled it to the remote logging road and set up for Tilt-Up.
“He was an interesting buck,” Sapper said. “I had several different encounters with him the year before. He’d come in to grunting or rattling, and I passed several shots at him. I guessed him in the150s, but I knew he was young. I won’t shoot a buck here until he’s at least five years old, so he got a pass last fall. I could tell from the pics I was getting this year that he’d really blown up.”
Though he had good wind direction, Sapper’s first two hunts for Tilt-Up were unsuccessful. But on the evening of Oct. 28, everything came together — for the second time in four days — for the whitetail nut.
“About an hour before dark, I saw a buck come out of a thicket and start walking toward me,” Sapper said. “I never leave my house without binoculars around my neck, but in all the hubbub with Tomahawk, I’d managed to misplace them. So, I’m looking through my rangefinder — which has a little magnification — and trying to decide if the buck is Tilt-Up. Finally, he stops to work a scrape only 40 yards away, and by then, I could tell it was him. It looked for a minute like he was going to walk right toward the blind. He was standing there, listening and watching for does. I know how quick those situations can go bad, so I came to full draw, and when he turned broadside, I buried the pin on him and took the shot. I could see the arrow hit perfect, and he ran off toward the thick stuff. But he only went 50 yards and piled up. I couldn’t believe it. In the space of four days, I’d shot the two biggest bucks on my farm. Tilt-Up grossed 185 inches.”
Iowa resident landowners are allowed two bucks with archery gear, plus a third on a primitive-weapons late-season tag (which can be a bow or muzzleloader kill).
“I knew I could still hunt for a third buck, but to tell the truth, at that point, it wasn’t really even on my mind,” Sapper said. “October wasn’t even over yet. So, there was a whole month of bowhunting, plus two shotgun seasons before I could even think of going again. I knew of one more buck I’d be happy to shoot, but he had a lot of hunting to survive before I could chase him.”
But of course, the buck — a pretty 10-pointer Sapper called “The Perfect Ten” — survived.
“He was another buck I knew really well,” Sapper said. “I had pics of him from when he was 3-1/2 and he was all over the farm. When he was 4-1/2, I figured he’d score about 160. Two years ago, I saw him during the late season, and I was really trying to decide. He honestly hadn’t grown a whole bunch. I figured he was still right there at 160 inches. I decided he probably wasn’t going to get any bigger, and maybe I should just take him. During the late muzzleloader hunt, I finally caught up with him in a food plot. I was watching him and looking for a shot when something spooked a bunch of does he was feeding with. He followed them off the field, and that was that.”
But the extra year of growth was just what the Perfect Ten needed.
“When this past season came around, I knew from pictures he made a good jump in growth,” Sapper said. “So, I got the Reenabling out again and hauled it right to the spot where I’d killed Tomahawk. It was perfect for a northwest wind, and there was good food there with the clover and corn. The week of Christmas, we had a good cold front come in, and I set up in the Redneck. I suppose it sounds almost too simple, but the Perfect Ten came out, and I got the shot. All of a sudden, an amazing season turned almost miraculous.” The Perfect Ten sported incredible main beams and a 21-inch inside spread. It scored 173 inches. Sapper’s season included three bucks with a combined score of 560 inches. For stats-nuts, that’s an average score of over 186 inches.
Set it up Right
Obviously, any of those whitetails would qualify for buck-of-a-lifetime status for most of us, and it would be oh-so-tempting to say Sapper just had a rabbit’s foot surgically implanted somewhere this past fall. Trouble is, the modest Iowan has been killing fantastic bucks on his farm for years.
“I think it’s really important to study things before you even start working on a new property,” he said. “I’ll spend hours staring at aerial photos, trying to determine where the best places for food plots will be. I take into account things like nearby bedding areas, travel routes and prevailing wind directions. And something that a lot of people don’t think enough about is entry and exit routes. You need to be able to get into and back out of hunting areas without alerting a bunch of deer.”
As noted earlier, Sapper places Imperial Whitetail Clover at the forefront of his food plot planning.
“Clover is king in my book,” he said “but I also use Imperial Whitetail Winter-Greens and Tall Tine Tubers. The first plot I put in was planted in Winter-Greens on a ridge behind my house where I killed my first good buck— a deer I called “Goalpost” that scored 202 inches. I was amazed at the pull Winter-Greens had on deer. Here in Iowa, there’s no shortage of food. There’s corn and beans and sometimes alfalfa within easy reach of deer whenever they want it. But I’ve learned that those small food plots situated close to cover are really attractive to bucks. “A friend of mine taught me a while back that even when they’re hitting a regular row-crop like corn or beans, whitetails will want to hit a green food source first,” Sapper said. “And I tell you what, that’s absolutely true. If my plot needs a break from clover, I’ll plant Winter-Greens or Tall Tine Tubers in there. And even in late season, when deer are supposedly all about corn and beans, just about every deer will hit that green stuff first. I’ve killed some of my best bucks by setting up my Whitetail Institute products in a small plot the deer use on their way to a destination plot.”
Finally, by having several quality food sources spread out and close to prime cover, Sapper has learned that it’s much easier to keep multiple bucks — even mature animals — content to stay in a relatively small area.
“The first big one I killed on this farm, the buck I called Goalpost, I shot on a Winter-Greens plot of a couple acres,” he said. “When I created that plot, I left one oak tree in the middle, where I put a ladder stand. The night I shot Goalpost, there were 10 bucks feeding in that plot that were 150 inches or better. And then Goalpost walked out. That tells me about the power of Winter-Greens but also of having good habitat and cover nearby. If there wasn’t thick stuff close to that plot where bucks could space themselves out and feel comfortable, I don’t think I’d have ever seen that.”
Sapper closed our conversation with more incredible humility. Even after the season he had, he gives all the glory to God for producing such awesome animals. He said he just tries to help make the habitat where they live the best it can be. He also said he is thankful to the Lord for leading him to move to Iowa 12 years ago.
Conclusion
Although Iowa is certainly a special place for anyone obsessed with big whitetails, what Sapper accomplished is remarkable, even for the Hawkeye State.
“Those three bucks I tagged last year were a perfect example,” he said. “While I talk about them being on the opposite ends of my farm, when you actually look at the spots they were faithful to, they were all within a half-mile of each other. That just further proves to me the importance of setting up a farm well, giving deer what they want and need and hunting right."