This morning I went with Brian to the area where I saw the buck last night. I was hoping to get him a shot at the big boy. Sitting together, it seemed like it should have been a good morning. It was calm and overcast. We heard a turkey gobble three times on the next ridge over. Since I only had a camera this morning, we just enjoyed the music and listened to the bird play its music. It’s funny the way it works when you’re in the woods. Now that I’m trying to kill a turkey, a person told us that I can still hunt for a doe. We were under the assumption that we could only shoot one buck with our tag and the antlerless tag that we had wasn’t to be used under any circumstances. I guess we just read the syllabus incorrectly. Although I’d love to kill a turkey, I would love to have some more venison. I haven’t seen many deer, so I’m sure it would be a challenge to kill a good doe.
We sat until 11 o’clock and decided that we should start pulling stands to get ready to leave near the end of the week. Brian decided he could use a climber after we got the hang-on stands out of the woods. It would help us be more prepared to leave when the time comes to get on the road.
After discussing our plans for the afternoon, I told Brian that I thought he should go back and sit in the stand where I killed my deer. I told him I had a gut feeling that the big 10-pointer we had on camera would walk through there today. I’m pretty sure he thought I was off my rocker when I told him I just had that feeling in my gut. I think some people get that and some don’t.
We made quick work getting over to that area and were in the woods by 1:00 after getting the stands out of the area we were in. We decided that I would walk around and collect all of the cameras in this area, and Brian would sit in my stand and pull it when he came out at dark.
When I pulled the first camera, I was impressed with the results. When we hung the camera a few days earlier, I told Brian I thought it was a great area for bucks to cruise during the rut. He couldn’t see it, but it kind of stuck out to me. The second camera didn’t have much on it, and the third one had decided to stop working sometime earlier in the week.
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Right after pulling the third camera, I heard Brian’s voice crackle across the radio. He told me he had shot at the big 10-pointer we had on camera and was pretty sure he had heard it crash after it took off running.
When he came back on the radio, he said he got the buck and would need help. I went and met him, and we packed the stand out and went back to the truck to get the deer cart.
As we were walking in and out, Brian told me the story of how everything played out. Right as he was getting to the stand, two does that were bedded in front of the tree stand jumped up and ran away. He quickly climbed onto the stand and got ready. Ten minutes after getting settled, he saw a 4-pointer cruising through the area where the does had been bedded. The 4-pointer came right by the stand, no more than 15 yards from the base of the tree.
As soon as the buck passed, he looked toward the area it had come from and saw the 10-pointer following its tracks. He stood up in the tree and waited. When it got within 30 yards, he didn’t know if it was going to turn right or left, but it didn’t matter which way it was going to go because he would have a broadside shot.
The buck chose to go down the trail to its right, which put it on the left side of the stand. When it went behind the big oak in front of the stand, Brian drew the bow, settled the pin and released the arrow.
The lighted nock appeared to zip through the deer a tad higher than where it should have been, but after the deer bounded through some thick stuff, a noise jumped out of the woods that sounded like a deer piling up.
Sure enough, that’s what the noise happened to be. The big 10-pointer’s legs went out from underneath it as he was bolting away. He never knew what hit him. Although he was running from the sound of the bow going off, he was mortally wounded.
Brian and I met on a road in the woods and headed out to get the deer cart to get the deer back to the truck. We enjoyed the sleet and freezing rain as we took care of the deer and wheeled it through some rugged country and back to the truck. What a day. I’m glad I found Brian a handful of years ago. I always wondered whom I would be able to hunt with that had the same drive as me. I found that person in Brian and will be forever thankful for it. He’s a good guy.