Long time, no see

LA CRESCENT, Minn. — On Nov. 19, 20 and 21, Paul Johnson saw a vaguely familiar buck in his field each evening while mixing feed on his dairy farm.

Johnson milks 100 Holstein, Jersey and Swiss cows with his family on Pine Creek Farms near La Crescent. He also enjoys hunting.

Knowing the wind was supposed to be from the west in the following days, he moved his ground blind to a more advantageous position to see if he could catch the buck coming out.

On Nov. 22, he was sitting in the blind with his bow. Six bucks came out, but not the buck he had set his sights on.

The next day, which was the opening morning of deer firearm season B, Johnson was once again in his ground blind. This time, the buck was one of the first deer out at a little after 7 a.m. Two shots from 175 yards with a scoped 12-gauge, and Johnson had his trophy.

“He was a really big dude,” Johnson said. “His nose was super long. He’s definitely the oldest one I’ve ever shot.”

Johnson said the buck is at least 8.5 years old, well above the 4.5-year age minimum the Johnson family has given themselves for harvesting bucks. The buck has 11 scorable points with a little over a 20-inch antler spread measured from the inside. Johnson plans to have the rack professionally scored but estimates its net score will be in the low 150s. The buck weighed 210 pounds field dressed.

Knowing his brothers were still hunting, Johnson decided to go back to the farm, mix feed and do chores and retrieve the deer later alongside them and his 2-year-old son, Emmett.

“It was pretty cool to see Emmett’s reaction,” Johnson said.

This year was Emmett’s first year experiencing deer hunting. Johnson had taken him out bow hunting earlier in the fall, and they had seen a fawn.

“He had his head out of the blind yelling at the deer,” Johnson said. “(He was saying) ‘Oh, hey, big buck.’”

Emmett’s interest continued after his first hunting excursion.

“Every time I would go out when I’d come back in, he’d always ask, ‘Dad you got a big buck?’” Johnson said.

Johnson said he was curious if they had trail camera footage of the deer. The family found footage from 2019 and 2020, but nothing since then.

“I don’t know where he’s been the last four years,” Johnson said.

Johnson and his family have around 16-20 trail cameras out all year.

“We watch the deer as they grow up,” Johnson said. “You know which deer is which and you’re trying to figure out where their pattern is and when they’re going to come out.”

Johnson said archery hunting in September is his favorite. Most years Johnson does more archery hunting than firearms hunting because firearms season conflicts with field work. This year, however, he was done with fieldwork and his high school hired help was more available because they had completed soccer season and had yet to start having basketball games.

Johnson is the main day-to-day person at Pine Creek Farms. His dad, Richard, feeds calves daily and his brothers, Ryan and Luke, do accounting and mechanical repairs, respectively.

Three high school girls Johnson employs all lease dairy cattle from him.

“They’ve already actually had their calves out for the last four weeks,” Johnson said. “Every time they come to work, they come early and they walk their calves around.”

Johnson has been deer hunting since he was 12 years old with his older brother Ryan. Ryan, who is an avid hunter, has 28 shoulder mount bucks at his home, two of which have scored in the 180s. Over the years, Ryan has started to manage the farm’s deer population.

The Johnsons have about 10 acres of food plots for deer with each plot about 1-2 acres in size. They plant clover, brassicas, buckwheat and more. They also cut trails.

This buck will be the seventh Johnson has had mounted. The largest buck he shot was a 9-point deer that scored 158 points, which he harvested with his bow in 2020.

Johnson has this 2020 hunt on video and has taken a camera hunting with him for the past 5-6 years.

“That’s kind of a little extra fun ... trying to self-film all these hunts, especially bow hunting,” Johnson said.

This year, he had his camera with him, but it all happened too quickly for him to capture it via camera.

Johnson said wind is the biggest factor he pays attention to when he hunts.

“If they can smell you, they’re going to know what you are,” Johnson said. “If they see you, they’re not going to know, they might spook, but they’ll come back. If they smell you, they are going to be gone … especially those mature deer.”

Johnson was not the only member of his family to see success this year. The Johnsons’ party of eight harvested five bucks and three does total.