It was Thursday and I was heading to the woods after work. The air was crisp and the wind was hardly blowing. After checking the wind direction I knew exactly where I wanted to sit so I made my hike in and set myself up high in a tree using my modified lone wolf climbing sticks and hang on stand.
As dark neared I could hear what sounded like foot steps in the leaves out in front of me. It could have been a squirrel but just in case I pulled out my rattle bag an shuffled it around just a couple of times. Almost instantly it sounded like the steps turned and came my direction so I quickly put the rattle bag away and got ready with my bow. But then I didn’t hear much more from in front of me. Instead I heard something coming through the thick brush directly behind me. Turning my head around I waited to see what was going to emerge. A mature buck came pushing through the tangled mess. Judging by the sheer mass of this deer, I made up my mind right away that I was going to take this deer if given the chance.
I didn’t want to be stuck in such an uncomfortable position so before he got any closer I faced back forward and sat as still as I possibly could. I had no shots behind me so I was going to have to wait and see if he would make his way past me. Looking for the fight, he was taking his time and carefully studying the area. I could only hear him take one or two steps at a time and then just stand there behind me. I didn’t dare turn to look as I did not want him to catch my movement. I still had about 45 minutes of shooting light left so I knew I had some time to wait this deer out.
After about 20 minutes I could finally hear him take a few more steps further from me so I slowly turned to find him again. Once he moved I spotted him 15 yards away. I could see that he was quartering away and I was starting to worry he might head back into his thick safety cover. But then he turned and began making his way toward me. Walking directly past me to my right within 10 yards of my tree, I still didn’t dare move to make a shot as he could have seen my movement. After taking a few steps at a time and stopping and taking a few more steps, he was angling perfectly directly in front of me and quartering away. As he came into the open directly in front of me I made my draw and released an arrow.
The impact immediately shattered the shoulder blade and I could see him take off on 3 legs. I listened and could hear him crashing in the brush maybe 50 or 60 yards in front of me and then nothing. I waited quite a while and in the mean time called in some help and packed up my gear. I was very grateful to find the buck right where I last heard him as there was not much blood to follow from this particular shot through the shoulder.
This deer field dressed out at 230lbs which would have put its live weight pushing close to 300lbs!!! I tried to correct the red-eye in this photo but now I look like I just crapped my pants. That awed look on my face is probably close to what I actually looked like when I walked up on this giant 🙂
I think this is the biggest deer I have taken to date. Again, I am very grateful to my friends Mitch, Joe and Heidi for coming to help me get this deer out of the woods. It took all 4 of us and a deer cart a couple of hours to haul it out. And the buck was so heavy it pretty much wrecked the deer cart bending the steel frame.
They said I wouldn’t look at the camera. (I just couldn’t stop looking at the deer!) So I gave them a quick look at the camera 🙂
One comment on “Rattling in a Giant”