What A Buck!

Ever have a hunch? Or a premonition? Or even a gut check?
My hunch or whatever it was almost made me vibrate in my elevated stand. I was all a'jangle, and only one thought bounced around in my head. Tonight would be the night. I hunt big bucks only or young does. A small buck doesn't interest me. Some years I don't shoot a good buck, and that is OK with me.
I sat as still as possible, was downwind of where the deer traveled, and was in my tree stand well before 4 p.m. Everything was set up, and only a faint breeze blew. It was as soft as an angel's kiss, and I was downwind of the trail.

The adrenalin was flowing

The longer I sat there, as immobile as a statue, the stronger this feeling grew. It was so strong that my neck hairs were lifting up. Jolt after jolt of adrenalin was coursing through my body, and even though I felt jumpy, there was no motion or noise.
The minutes passed with all the speed of a moving glacier. Time dragged by on tired legs, and soon it was 5:45 and I had yet to see a deer. As the minutes passed with dragged-out slowness, the feeling seemed to intensify. Something was close by.
Shooting time ended where I was hunting at 5:58 p.m., and that gave whatever was coming just 13 minutes to get on the stick and move down the trail to me.
I heard a twig snap behind me in a tag alder run. Deer? Perhaps some large animal? A buck?
Possibilities seemed endless, and yet the feeling persisted. There was something behind me, but what?
With two minutes to go I checked my watch again, noted the little remaining shooting time, and still nothing moved. There seemed to be a hush, and had I been bear hunting it would have meant a bruin was up and moving nearby.

It wasn't a bear

But this location isn't noted for bears. I've learned to believe in these feelings, hunches or whatever they are. Such thoughts have kept me alive when trouble was brewing, and it has alerted me to approaching bears or possible danger. My eyes kept flitting to the trail, and then the magic minutes and hours combined to force me to remove the arrow from my bow.
I stowed my bow, put the arrow in the quiver, and waited for my buddy to pick me up. I didn't want to move from my stand until I was picked up, and was content to let the vehicle spook the deer rather than me doing it by moving at the wrong time. There was no sense alerting the deer to my presence in the tree and ruining that spot for the rest of the season.
Five minutes after legal shooting time ended, the vibes grew much stronger, and like a ghost from a horror movie, out stepped a big buck. He was four inches outside of his ears on both sides, and although the brow tines were short, the main beams were heavy and each of the points looked to be 10-12 inches long.

It was a very nice buck

This beautiful 8-point was the first buck I'd seen in several days, and what continues to amaze me, was that I could feel the animal nearby. My body, for whatever the reason, is attuned to such things.
The same feelings occur when bear hunting, and this buck had established his presence on me two hours earlier. It just took him until dark to make his move down the trail but I knew he was there for a long time.
My binoculars focused on that magnificent rack, and I studied him with a calmness that even surprised me. You see, I knew I couldn't shoot and so I did the next best thing. I studied him and the doe that traveled with him.
His body was long and thick between the  backbone and belly as he moved through some high weeds, and his neck was rut-swollen, and he had tufts of hair missing here and there. He had fought some rutting wars, and was very alert to any danger.
He didn't move fast. One or two steps, stop, lift his head, and with the binoculars I could see his ears swiveling back and forth as he listened for any strange sound. I could hear that buck sniffing the breeze, and there I sat being treated to one of the greatest shows on earth without lingering long on any one spot on that buck.
He eventually moved on down the trail and was out of sight when my ride showed up. I loaded my gear into the vehicle, cased my bow, jumped in, eased the door shut with an almost inaudible click, and away we went.
I muttered: "What a buck!" He asked about what I saw, and listened to my story, and I'd been blessed tonight. No arrows were shot, but I saw the buck that would have made my day or that of any other bow hunter.
I could have cheated and shot the buck, but that is not me. I told the story to another hunter, and he said he would have shot. Who would have known?
Only me, I told him. I would have known that by taking a shot that I was no better than a common poacher, and whenever I would look at that buck, I would have known that I broke the law to shoot a deer.
Seeing that big buck was good enough for me. And tomorrow, when I look in the mirror, I'll know I did the ethical and right thing.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors