A Typical Non-Typical Day

The absolute biggest White tail deer of my life, up to this point haha, came to me out of nowhere. The first day of my second season of archery hunting. In total, a 3-hour hunt. I get out of class from my local college, hop in my truck, and drive out to my land in jeans, sneakers, a beat-up T-shirt, and a backwards hat. This hunt started a lot like every other first day of the season. The highest of expectations and the determination to only shoot a deer if there is NO doubt in my mind that THAT is the one. If there is even one single sliver in my mind saying "maybe I should wait for a bigger one" I will not kill the animal. I usually only choose one deer a year to harvest. I don't have a whole lot of space in my deep freeze for much more than that. Especially if the salmon run was good that year.

I am really lucky to have a small 10-acre plot of land that borders a highway, a forest preserve, and corn/soy fields. The best part about private property is the fact that I can pass up a nice 8-point buck and let it grow the next year to get bigger and pass on the genes. I do not have to worry about a whole lot of competition.

Anyways, I got out of school early that day around 3 pm. I went to the land right from school already dressed with my bow in the car. Getting out to the land, I go through the ditch and park up in a field behind a little coniferous tree to provide a little bit of camouflage for my truck, hiding it from the road a bit. Hopping out, I knock an arrow, I usually use mechanical blade broadhead and I know there is a pretty heated debate about mechanical vs fixed but they always worked for me. Anyway, that's a future article I will be writing but back to the topic at hand. The first portion of my property is chest high burrs and grasses so I have to carry my bow with the arrow facing the sky to keep it locked in properly.

The bad part of this property though is that I need to walk diagonally right through the middle of the property to get to the back corner where my stand it. As I creep closer to my stand, walking as quietly as I can I spook two deer out of the tree line. These two go bounding and huffing through the woods into the forest preserve, luckily a Doe and a Fawn. There are plenty of these pairs on my property, the future looks good. Getting to my stand I climb up, get settled in, and start to wait. My stand is situated in probably a 150 year Oak tree, plenty of acorns on the ground attracting the deer. As I settle that familiar, eery, silence settles over the woods. Not even any of the 1,000 squirrels hustling through the dry and rustlin' Oak leaves beneath me.

As the time passed on and the sun started dropping below the tree line to the west, the soybean field gets covered in shadow more and more. This day I saw the most deer I had ever seen in a single sit, over 25 deer. A few of those following the same trail I took to my stand, just about 12 feet off the ground, close enough I dropped acorns on them just for fun. One of 'em, a nub buck, started eating the acorns while staring right at me. I even had a pretty decent 8 point come in early evening after a slew of does and small non-shooter bucks. That 8 point I drew back on but in my mind im thinking "Hey, it's the first day and I KNOW the potential of this property". So, in the end, I passed on it. As soon as it disappeared, I wondered if that decision would come back to bite me. Luckily, it did not.

After another group of does goes past me and into the soybean field I had two 6-point twins hanging around about 25 yards in front of me in a field. It is getting to the last few rays of light from the sun. I only have about 20 minutes left of shooting light. As I am sitting there taking discrete videos and photos of the two bucks fighting, all of a sudden, their heads SNAP up. They both reflect each other in looking to the east of the field, the one spot that I cannot see through the bramble of branches and leaves. After what felt like lifetime, probably only a minute or so, I can see the movement of legs walking down the path towards the field I sit over. Looking as hard and focusing as much as I can, I start peering through the branches looking for the semblance of antlers, and after a couple more minutes of watching the legs taking one step and pausing for a minute or two....

THERE!!! Just a few feet to the left of my field was a mess of antlers. I could not tell just how many there were in the fleeting sunlight, but I knew that this buck, this was the one. When it looks like a tree but ends up being antlers, that's a shooter buck. Eventually, there he stood in all his magnificence, only his head and antlers exposed for a shot. "He's toying with me" I thought. He was doing his checks, dropping his head to eat, and snapping it back up suspiciously. "He can feel something off in the air". He stood there and I could feel my shot opportunity slipping away as the sun dipped more and more over the horizon. So, there I sat with my bow stuck into my chest at the ready position waiting for him to take that step so I can draw all 70 pounds of it as inconspicuously and I can. I could feel years getting taken off my life span as the stress built up more and more.

Finally, he took a step. Drawing as slowly and smoothly as I could manage, I saw an opening on his front shoulder. There he stood 25 yards away quartering to me ever so slightly, if at all. Only the front half of his body was exposed for a shot. Going over in my head that if he quartered to me anymore it would be an unethical shot for me. Luckily, he stayed in the position he was in, and I went through that instinctual check of my pre-release routine. Feeling the pressure of the sun getting ever lower, I threw my sights on his front shoulder, tried to still the crazy mount of trembling in my arms and slow my heartbeat. I swear I almost had a heart attack. At the last moment, he glanced right at me. I took the shot!

This buck may not have been an old one, but he definitely had been shot at before, especially with a trophy rack with such personality. Unfortunately, in the instant my arrow covered the 25 yards this buck ducked tried to duck the shot, coupled with the shot ringing slightly high, it took him in the top of the lungs and the spine. A quick follow up shot put him out of his misery a step away from where he stood at the first hit, he took. All in all, between the first and second shot, only about 30 seconds had transpired. There he lay, no tracking needed, didn't go a yard. Was I happy with what had happened, no. In an ideal situation, I would much rather a clean miss than risking an injury only to the deer. Luckily or unluckily, it took him in the spine so I would not have to wait and worry about if the shot was enough or if I just marred a beautiful buck.

After the nerves calmed down, not really, I called the first person I could think of. My dad! He is the one who instilled the values of hunting into me. He has been hunting ever since he was young and I with him ever since I was about 9 or 10 years old. Sitting in the box stand for the Thanksgiving Rifle season. As soon as I told my dad I got a deer he instantly congratulated me, stopped what he was doing and made the 30-minute drive out to help me. I played a little trick on him though haha. I did not tell him the sheer magnitude of the size of this Bucks antler. As soon as he got to the land, I met him by my truck and walked with him out to the spot where the deer lay. As soon as I lifted the head there were some cuss and congratulatory words spoken. A great experience to share with my dad. One I hope to have many more of.