Diaries of a Deer Hunter - Chapter 3

Diaries of a Deer Hunter... Let’s Get More Complicated

Chapter 3

The next year came and went, and everything seemed like business as usual. I

started the season just like every other one, quail hunting behind my dog at my normal

spot. We were actually having a great year, and the place was loaded with birds. But on

one of those trips, I saw something unexpected: that same buck, now fully mature, with

a beautiful six-point rack on one side and the same giant dagger on the other. I started

to get an idea. Maybe I could convince the landowner to let me go after just that buck. I

had been hunting his property for years, and I thought maybe he trusted me enough by

now. I made the phone call, and the answer was still no for that property. What I didn’t

know was that he had recently bought another piece of land much closer to home,

about eighty acres surrounded by houses. He said that every time he had been out

there, he had seen deer. That quickly became the plan. I was going after a buck.

The only problem was, I had no equipment, and convincing my wife to let me buy

an expensive bow on a fireman’s salary was not happening. I borrowed a crossbow

from a good friend, bought a thirty-dollar trail cam, grabbed a nine-dollar bag of deer

corn, and went to check out the new spot. The next issue was timing, because it was

the end of November and the rut was winding down fast. On day one, I went out,

dumped the corn, and set the camera just to see what was around. Two nights later, I

pulled the card, and I was shocked. On November 27, at 12:23 p.m., I had a picture of a

twelve-point, Roman-nosed warrior. I immediately shifted my focus to him.

The land was laid out with two draws coming in from the south that intersected

into one large draw running north. It was obvious where the deer traveled, and there

wasn’t much bedding on the property. The rest was a cut cornfield. I set up a ground

blind under a cluster of cedars right at the intersection of the draws. I snuck in about an

hour before first light, fully expecting action to be fast and furious because that was all I

had ever seen there before. I was wrong. Now I was actually deer hunting, and I learned

quickly that days could pass before I saw anything. On my third sit, I finally saw a deer.

It was a doe working down the draw, and she walked right through the intersection eight

yards from me.

On my fourth sit, I saw my first buck. I ended up seeing him about a dozen times

over the next several sits. He was young, had one side of his rack broken off, and was

dumb enough to stand five yards away sniffing while I looked him straight in the eyes. I

even gave him a name—a name I’ll keep to myself because it happens to belong to a

guy I used to work with who was a little wiry and not exactly the brightest bulb.

Archery season dragged on, rifle season came and went, and I was still

determined to get one with that crossbow. I couldn’t tell you how many sits I made that

year, but it was more than fifteen. Some were in the rain, and a couple took place after

six inches of snow. None of them worked out, and I ended the season with my first bowl

of tag soup. A couple of weeks later, antlerless season came around. I decided to take

the rifle out to see if I could still use that tag. The hunt was short and sweet. After about

ten minutes, a group of does came in, and this time I shot a mature doe. It was just like

every other rifle hunt I had been on: walk in, deer appears almost immediately, bang,

hunt over.

Even though I filled the tag, my heart was still set on getting one during archery

season. That’s when the real preparation began for the next year and the buck I hoped

would finally be mine.