Here’s mine
When I first got a glimpse of that whitetail, I guessed he was a 3 year old. He was a big bodied deer with a very tall and heavy rack. He had only 8 points, not terribly wide yet, but you could plainly see the potential. He became my obsession for the next three years.
This was in my younger years before trail cams and cell phones. I spent every minute that I wasn’t working in the woods. Scouting was/is as much fun for me as the hunt. I kept a notebook with me at all times as I documented feeding and bedding areas, main trails, secondary trails, rub lines, scrape lines, individual sightings of different bucks, doe and fawn numbers etc…you know the drill. The point is that when I first saw him I assumed he was just passing through the 380 acres of woods on our farm that I mostly hunted alone. ( I was the only bowhunter in the family. The rest seemed content with rampaging through the woods for 3 or 4 days of the 9 day gun season in late November unless lunch, a nap, or a football game might get in the way.)
Much to my surprise, once I finally found what I felt was his bedding area, he was very much a resident. That I hadn’t seen him until that point was a surprise given the amount of time I spent in the woods. I never, however, would venture close to any bedding areas. It turned out that he was the most nocturnal deer I’ve encountered to this day. I got to know his track, his habits, where he slept, where he fed, where he went on which days, and how the weather conditions would affect his routine. With that information I positioned myself in the most optimal spots to bring this guy home. Even so, I was only able to get eyes on him three times that next year, and four the next. Each time at either first or last light, even in the prime of rut, and always in heavy cover. He was gaining mass and tine length each year. Someday he would make a mistake, and I would be there when he did.
The opportunity finally came. A cold, frost-crisp evening at the height of the rut in early November of the third year after that first sighting. The wind was right for finally using this spot…a ground blind under a high-stumped downed oak tree that a storm had taken a few years before that took very little work to prepare. I had been in there for 3 1/2 hrs and the light was fading quickly. Just as my thoughts were turning to defeat once more, I caught movement off to my left.
The main trail meandered downhill straight toward me as it dropped off a “saddle” (small flattened depression on the down grade) that was 22 yards away and slightly above where I stood…which was basically behind this immense oak tree broken about ten feet up and laying to the ground to my right affording me shooting lanes to each side of it and concealment to do so. Another main trail wove from my left, crossing the saddle, and disappearing to my right around the hill. This trail was flanked by two secondary trails.
It was on the lower secondary trail where I was focusing my attention after catching movement. When I first realized I was watching antlers slowly emerging from behind a deadfall at 35 yards, I was certain that it was one of his competitors (also very nice) that I had passed on several times while hunting this guy. But the antlers just kept coming…slowly…kind of at the same speed my eyes were widening as his face finally appeared and I realized which buck this was. My chance was here! He was late getting home as he was thinking with his nose and certain other body parts and I had every intention of taking advantage of his mistake. His nose to the ground, he zig-zagged between the secondary trail and the main trail. Though normally wired 480 volts and paranoid as hell, his guard was down. Now all I had to do…besides trying to keep my heart rate below the stratosphere…was wait for him to hit the crossroad 22 yards above me and decide if he’s coming down toward me (15 yard shot in an opening to my left), carry on through (uphill 24 yard shot to an opening ahead to my right requiring my turning and drawing on the other side of the massive trunk), or turn and go uphill out of my life.
There was a point at which he enters the dark side of the moon, also known as the massive tree trunk that while great at hiding me, also excelled at removing my line of sight on the buck. Now I had to rely on my hearing to decide which side of my tree I would have to draw my bow.
I know he has reached the trail crossing as all is silent except for the thundering in my chest. The leaves are so crisp that I can hear bugs in the leaves around me. Seconds pass, no sound. I wait longer, still no sound, light is fading fast. It gets the best of me. I slowly peered around to my left as far as I dared. No deer. I carefully turned on my bare ground patch cleared for this occasion and ever so slowly peeked around to the right. There he was. He had unbelievably moved about ten yards to the right of the intersecting trails and was standing there broadside…staring directly at me at about 18 yards…3 steps from disappearing around the hill. But he wasn’t on the trail. He had moved below it a few feet and so was not in the shooting lane I’d anticipated. It’s now or never. I took the chance and slowly leaned back behind my huge tree, drew my bow, and leaned back out. He had given up on whatever it was he thought he might’ve seen down by that big tree and was looking away around the hill. He took one more step forward and stopped slightly quartered away. Perfect. All the practicing and league shooting with my bow has paid off in confidence that settled me in for the shot. I picked the spot low behind the right shoulder and released the arrow. The fletching twirled away headed directly for the boiler room and all doubt disappeared when I heard the crack of a rib and an explosion of leaves as he launched himself over the hump to the other side of the hill.
I slumped down with my back against the tree trunk and sat. I stayed there for about fifteen minutes and got my shaking back under control. By now it was dark and I’d heard no noise since the shot. The shot felt perfect and I was ready to go pick up the reward for all the time and effort. I dug the flashlight out and headed the 18 yards up to where I last saw him fully expecting to see all the bright red one would expect with the perfect shot.
An hour later I was back at that spot again staring in disbelief at the dirt kicked up by his feet as he tore out of there. What the little circle of light did NOT illuminate was even a single drop of blood. Not one. Nothing. Including the arrow. I had just spend the last hour on hands and knees scouring in slow circles around the shot site and along where the dirt was kicked up.
As I stood there in shock making my plan to come back in the morning, eyeball the shot angle and go with the arrow line to try to find it and any evidence it may or may not hold, I just couldn’t get over the fact that I vividly heard the crack of a rib as the arrow hit home. Shaking my head, I began to back away toward my tree when I brushed up against something. I turned to see a tall skinny poplar sapling that was at the most 6 to 7 feet high and not quite an inch in diameter. With a fleeting thought that it was a bit weird that it was the only hint of a tree in a 20 foot area of low flat brush, I headed for my tree to get my gear and head out….and stopped in my tracks. No way. No f’n way. I grudgingly headed back to the little sapling and there, buried thigh high and dead center in that little lone sapling was the arrow meant for my buck of a lifetime.
In the low light of dusk, I never saw that skinny little sapling. It had a few twigs at the very top and it’s few leaves were long gone. It’s only branch…a carbon arrow looking back at a giant broken oak tree.
I hunted him hard for the next year seeing him only twice. I never saw again after that and never heard of anyone getting him.
I’ve missed other shots and of course admit losing a couple of wounded ones after lengthy searches. I know it comes with the territory and they are extremely disappointing.
This one was painful. Painful enough that I still vividly recall every minute of it 32 years later…and I can’t remember what I did last week!
When I first got a glimpse of that whitetail, I guessed he was a 3 year old. He was a big bodied deer with a very tall and heavy rack. He had only 8 points, not terribly wide yet, but you could plainly see the potential. He became my obsession for the next three years.
This was in my younger years before trail cams and cell phones. I spent every minute that I wasn’t working in the woods. Scouting was/is as much fun for me as the hunt. I kept a notebook with me at all times as I documented feeding and bedding areas, main trails, secondary trails, rub lines, scrape lines, individual sightings of different bucks, doe and fawn numbers etc…you know the drill. The point is that when I first saw him I assumed he was just passing through the 380 acres of woods on our farm that I mostly hunted alone. ( I was the only bowhunter in the family. The rest seemed content with rampaging through the woods for 3 or 4 days of the 9 day gun season in late November unless lunch, a nap, or a football game might get in the way.)
Much to my surprise, once I finally found what I felt was his bedding area, he was very much a resident. That I hadn’t seen him until that point was a surprise given the amount of time I spent in the woods. I never, however, would venture close to any bedding areas. It turned out that he was the most nocturnal deer I’ve encountered to this day. I got to know his track, his habits, where he slept, where he fed, where he went on which days, and how the weather conditions would affect his routine. With that information I positioned myself in the most optimal spots to bring this guy home. Even so, I was only able to get eyes on him three times that next year, and four the next. Each time at either first or last light, even in the prime of rut, and always in heavy cover. He was gaining mass and tine length each year. Someday he would make a mistake, and I would be there when he did.
The opportunity finally came. A cold, frost-crisp evening at the height of the rut in early November of the third year after that first sighting. The wind was right for finally using this spot…a ground blind under a high-stumped downed oak tree that a storm had taken a few years before that took very little work to prepare. I had been in there for 3 1/2 hrs and the light was fading quickly. Just as my thoughts were turning to defeat once more, I caught movement off to my left.
The main trail meandered downhill straight toward me as it dropped off a “saddle” (small flattened depression on the down grade) that was 22 yards away and slightly above where I stood…which was basically behind this immense oak tree broken about ten feet up and laying to the ground to my right affording me shooting lanes to each side of it and concealment to do so. Another main trail wove from my left, crossing the saddle, and disappearing to my right around the hill. This trail was flanked by two secondary trails.
It was on the lower secondary trail where I was focusing my attention after catching movement. When I first realized I was watching antlers slowly emerging from behind a deadfall at 35 yards, I was certain that it was one of his competitors (also very nice) that I had passed on several times while hunting this guy. But the antlers just kept coming…slowly…kind of at the same speed my eyes were widening as his face finally appeared and I realized which buck this was. My chance was here! He was late getting home as he was thinking with his nose and certain other body parts and I had every intention of taking advantage of his mistake. His nose to the ground, he zig-zagged between the secondary trail and the main trail. Though normally wired 480 volts and paranoid as hell, his guard was down. Now all I had to do…besides trying to keep my heart rate below the stratosphere…was wait for him to hit the crossroad 22 yards above me and decide if he’s coming down toward me (15 yard shot in an opening to my left), carry on through (uphill 24 yard shot to an opening ahead to my right requiring my turning and drawing on the other side of the massive trunk), or turn and go uphill out of my life.
There was a point at which he enters the dark side of the moon, also known as the massive tree trunk that while great at hiding me, also excelled at removing my line of sight on the buck. Now I had to rely on my hearing to decide which side of my tree I would have to draw my bow.
I know he has reached the trail crossing as all is silent except for the thundering in my chest. The leaves are so crisp that I can hear bugs in the leaves around me. Seconds pass, no sound. I wait longer, still no sound, light is fading fast. It gets the best of me. I slowly peered around to my left as far as I dared. No deer. I carefully turned on my bare ground patch cleared for this occasion and ever so slowly peeked around to the right. There he was. He had unbelievably moved about ten yards to the right of the intersecting trails and was standing there broadside…staring directly at me at about 18 yards…3 steps from disappearing around the hill. But he wasn’t on the trail. He had moved below it a few feet and so was not in the shooting lane I’d anticipated. It’s now or never. I took the chance and slowly leaned back behind my huge tree, drew my bow, and leaned back out. He had given up on whatever it was he thought he might’ve seen down by that big tree and was looking away around the hill. He took one more step forward and stopped slightly quartered away. Perfect. All the practicing and league shooting with my bow has paid off in confidence that settled me in for the shot. I picked the spot low behind the right shoulder and released the arrow. The fletching twirled away headed directly for the boiler room and all doubt disappeared when I heard the crack of a rib and an explosion of leaves as he launched himself over the hump to the other side of the hill.
I slumped down with my back against the tree trunk and sat. I stayed there for about fifteen minutes and got my shaking back under control. By now it was dark and I’d heard no noise since the shot. The shot felt perfect and I was ready to go pick up the reward for all the time and effort. I dug the flashlight out and headed the 18 yards up to where I last saw him fully expecting to see all the bright red one would expect with the perfect shot.
An hour later I was back at that spot again staring in disbelief at the dirt kicked up by his feet as he tore out of there. What the little circle of light did NOT illuminate was even a single drop of blood. Not one. Nothing. Including the arrow. I had just spend the last hour on hands and knees scouring in slow circles around the shot site and along where the dirt was kicked up.
As I stood there in shock making my plan to come back in the morning, eyeball the shot angle and go with the arrow line to try to find it and any evidence it may or may not hold, I just couldn’t get over the fact that I vividly heard the crack of a rib as the arrow hit home. Shaking my head, I began to back away toward my tree when I brushed up against something. I turned to see a tall skinny poplar sapling that was at the most 6 to 7 feet high and not quite an inch in diameter. With a fleeting thought that it was a bit weird that it was the only hint of a tree in a 20 foot area of low flat brush, I headed for my tree to get my gear and head out….and stopped in my tracks. No way. No f’n way. I grudgingly headed back to the little sapling and there, buried thigh high and dead center in that little lone sapling was the arrow meant for my buck of a lifetime.
In the low light of dusk, I never saw that skinny little sapling. It had a few twigs at the very top and it’s few leaves were long gone. It’s only branch…a carbon arrow looking back at a giant broken oak tree.
I hunted him hard for the next year seeing him only twice. I never saw again after that and never heard of anyone getting him.
I’ve missed other shots and of course admit losing a couple of wounded ones after lengthy searches. I know it comes with the territory and they are extremely disappointing.
This one was painful. Painful enough that I still vividly recall every minute of it 32 years later…and I can’t remember what I did last week!
