Big buck but no shot

Big bucks require more patience than many hunters think

The big buck appeared like a ghost from a bad dream. One minute there was nothing nearby, and the next found me looking at a 150-class whitetail buck.

This was three years ago, and he was 75 yards away, moving in my general direction through the fringe of a swampy wooded area. He moved slowly and cautiously, the way big bucks do once they've been shot at.

This big boy was an old buck, and I saw him once the year before but such thoughts often leave something to the imagination. My guess was he was 5 1/2 years old, and had survived this long by being smarter than the average buck and the average bow hunter.

OK, so it’s almost summer; I still relive some of my big-buck dreams

He tested the wind constantly, stood for long minutes checking things out before committing to a move, and I knew where he was heading. A nearby corn field had been half picked, and the owner hoped to get all of the field harvested before the predicted weekend rain fell.

The buck nosed the ground, following the track made by an unseen deer for 10 yards before turning back on his course toward the corn. At this pace, it would reach the dinner table just after dark.

The question was whether he would reach me or pass out of range through marsh grass and scrub brush before shooting time ended. A doe came squirting out of the marsh grass, moving away from the buck. The rut was in full-drive; she was nervous; but he didn't pursue her.

His intentions seemed quite clear: reach the corn field right at dark, feed, terrorize the younger bucks and young does, and be back bedded down before daylight broke across the land.

He kept coming, and was soon 60 yards away.  I've shot many bucks over the years, but this one was too grand an animal to try such an unwarranted shot in fairly thick cover. I never shoot at a buck that I'm not 100 percent confident of killing.

My bow was in my hand, and this was the largest buck I'd seen lately, but he would either come close enough for a slam-dunk easy shot or he'd continue on about his business out of bow range.

He eventually reached the edge of thick cover, and would move through more open upland woods ... if he stayed his course. He would move out of the heavy cover and into the open, and then duck back in the cover, zigzagging ever closer to me.

He minced along like he had sore feet, and stopped every few steps. He was now 35 yards away, but still in heavy cover when his heavy white antlers could be seen. In fact, it was one glimpse of white antlers going up and down as he rubbed a tree that first caught my attention.

Patience, it’s been preached, is one key to autumn success

The wind was swinging a bit from north to northwest, and then he turned and seemed to move closer toward me. That turned out to be an illusion as he walked around a wind-toppled tree.

My watch showed there was  but 10 minutes of shooting time left, and he was now at 30 yards but still five yards inside thick cover. The suspense continued to build with each step he took, and the big question was whether he would start sliding toward the more open part of the funnel or stay back where it was thick.

I'd shot a number of bucks from this spot, and all of them had walked into the thin part of the cover. One spot offered a 20-yard open shot but he was still 25 yards from it.

The clock was ticking, and even though I've shot bucks at this distance over many years, each one is a new adventure. Honestly, the wait is an adrenaline-filled rush. He stepped forward, almost to the edge of the thin cover, and I'm glancing at my watch.

There was five minutes left, and two more steps would put him into the natural opening where I'd have an easy broadside shot. He put his head down, rocked on his feet, but didn't move forward.

My bow was up, and I was ready to draw, but still he stood, rooted in one spot. And he was still standing there, two steps from a clean shot, when shooting time ran out.

He was so close, and yet so far away, and he stood there for 10 more minutes before moving on toward the corn field. It was a wonderful hunt, filled with heart-pounding excitement right up until the end, and after he moved off, I headed home.

Knowing that buck is there was important. I never shot him, but I never heard that anyone did shoot him. I will hunt him again. He is too big to ignore but one wonders. Bucks in this area are like circuit-riding preachers from the Old West, and there is always the troubling thought of never seeing him again.

We never know when a big buck will appear but we must be ready

Time will tell. If I never see him again, I'll feel blessed to have seen him once on one snowy November day. And sometimes, as hunters, we must be content with these little teases.

Now, it's important to wait for the next one. And that, my friends, is one big reason why hunting big bucks is fun. We don't always connect, but to have these experiences tells us we're doing something right. Now I must reposition a tree stand a bit closer to the heavy cover in hopes the deer decides to move just a bit earlier.

One can always hope.

Doing the right thing

Sometimes all we see is a glimpse of a big buck. It has to be enough.

Ever have a hunch? Or a premonition? Or a gut check? How about a lucky guess while bow hunting whitetail deer?

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.

Here it comes. I thought. Tonight is the night.

I could feel the buck behind me. I don’t know how but I knew he was there.

I sat as still as possible, was downwind of where the deer travel, and was in my tree well before 4 p.m. Everything was set up, and only a faint breeze blew.

The longer I sat, the stronger this feeling became. It was so strong that my neck hairs were lifting up. Jolt after jolt of adrenaline was coursing through my body, and even though I felt jumpy, there was no motion or noise. I learned many years ago how to control those feelings.

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.

Shooting time ended where I was hunting near Cadillac at 5:59 p.m., and that gave whatever was coming just 13 minutes to get on the stick and come down the trail.

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?

It was one of those situation where I had to wait for the buck to move.

With two minutes to go I checked my watch again, noted the shortness of 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.

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 in some bad areas over the years, and it has alerted me to approaching bears. 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 ride 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.

Five minutes after legal shooting time ended, the vibes grew even stronger, and out walked a nice buck. His antlers were outside of his ears on both sides, and although the brow tines were short, the main beams were heavy and each points was nearly 10 inches long.

I didn’t move, and never did poaching this buck occur to me. I play by the rules.

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's presense  nearby. My body, for whatever the reason, is attuned to such things, for which I've been very happpy.

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.

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.

His body was long and thick between the  backbone and belly, 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.

He didn't move fast at all. One or two steps, stop, lift his head, and with the binoculars I could see his ears swiveling back and forth for any strange sound. I could hear that buck sniffing the breeze, and there I sat in my Scent-Lok suit being treated to one of the greatest shows on earth.

He eventually moved on down the trail and was out of sight when my ride showed up. I loaded my gear into the vehicle, 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;d seen, and listened to my story, and I'd been blessed tonight. No arrows were shot as rain threatened all night, but I saw the buck that would have made my day or that of any other bow hunter.

I could have cheated and shot that buck, but that is not me. I told the story to another hunter, and he said he would have shot in a heartbeat. Who would have known?

Only me, I said. 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 cheated and broken the rules.

Seeing that big buck was good enough for me. And tomorrow, when I look in the morning mirror, I'll know I did the right thing. That is the most important thing to me.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors