Ben Ellis used patience, persistence, and a well-timed saddle setup to tag an extremely rare quad main beam 8-point in Arkansas.
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Ben Ellis had been watching the same buck for weeks on his Central Arkansas hunting property—an extremely rare quad main beam 8-point. This buck was part of a bachelor group with 7 to 10 good sized bucks, but with such a unique rack, Ben set his sights on him and him only.
With his Spypoint pouring in consistent photos, Ben hoped the buck would maintain the same pattern until the opener on September 6th. But a week prior, the deer pulled a vanishing act and disappeared from his trail camera completely.
“I was like, ‘OK, where did he go?’” says Ellis. “So I started moving cameras, pouring out a little feed, just trying to locate him again.
Then on Tuesday, September 2nd, just days before opening day, Ellis spotted something unexpected while pulling out of the property.
“I shut the gate, pulled out in the truck, and looked to my right. He was bedded down 60 yards away beside this old rundown camper, back leaned up against it, big oak tree behind him,” Ellis says. “I was like, ‘OK… he’s still here.’”
That sleepless night sparked a new strategy. Ellis knew the camper sat just across the property line—but the buck’s travel path likely passed through huntable terrain on his side. So he planned to hunt opening morning with his son in a different spot and planned a surgical strike for that afternoon.
“I knew I had to catch him coming back to bed,” he says. “If I tried to sneak in prior to daylight, I’d blow it. So I picked a tree where I thought I could intercept him early Saturday evening and get him at the right time.”
Ben wasn’t taking any chances—he took a de-scenting shower, sealed his hunting clothes in a Scent Crusher bag, and ran it to make sure everything was dialed in.
Using an old climber base as a makeshift saddle platform, Ellis hung his setup on a hillside about 60 yards from the camper. The spot had a good back cover and Ben felt confident. He got to the tree at 3:45 which he thought was plenty of time to get settled in before the buck would come back to its bed.
“I got all my sticks up, got my bow pulled up—and I’m messing with my arrow, hadn’t even knocked it yet—and I see something move,” he says. “The buck’s already at 30 yards, walking an old barbed wire fence line lining the property.”
In a scramble to get his arrow nocked, Ellis watched the buck cross in front of him at 15 yards. A quick mouth bleat stopped the deer at 27 yards, and Ellis took the shot.
“The buck took one small turn and took off downhill. I watched his back hooves go over his head as he hit the ground,” he says. “Saw the whole thing happen. It was insane”
The drag wasn’t far—about 100 yards to the road—and the celebration was immediate. Though he hasn’t officially scored the velvet 8-pointer yet, Ellis estimates the buck will land in the 120s, but says the score doesn’t matter as much as the hunt itself.
“It’s definitely the coolest buck I’ve ever killed,” he says. “I’ve taken others, but none where I had to plan that carefully and watch him for days.”
And he says the excitement never gets old.
“Whether it’s a doe or a buck like this, if I get a harvest with my bow, I’m fired up,” Ellis says. “But once the arrow’s gone… oh yeah, the adrenaline hits. I pretty much jumped out of the tree.”
