Diaries of a Deer Hunter - Chapter 4

Diaries of a Deer Hunter... I Finally Have a Plan

Chapter 4

Up until this year, I really had no plan at all. I was basically just winging it,

pretending I knew what I was doing. But this was going to be the year that changed.

Shortly after shooting the doe, I put the cameras back up to see what bucks had

survived on this little eighty-acre piece of land. I left the cameras up for a couple of

months, and the results gave me absolutely no clue what to expect. Bucks I had never

seen before were suddenly showing up, and the ones that used to be on camera every

day were nowhere to be found. And definitely not the old Roman-nosed bruiser I’d

gotten that one fleeting picture of the year before.

By the end of summer, it was time to get to work. On the first of September, I

started putting out corn and running the cameras again to get new pictures. I monitored

them constantly, looking for any changes in patterns. When the season opened, I didn’t

do my first sit until mid-October. I had two bucks showing up consistently, a big thirteen-

point and a giant eight, both coming out around eight in the morning every day. That

year, I had started a new job, so all-day weekday sits weren’t possible. I was a weekend

warrior like most people. I kept the same blind setup as the year before, and the deer

were still traveling the route I expected.

On November 8, I went out for an afternoon sit. I was set up on the south end,

and as the sun dipped lower, I saw movement. A buck stepped into an opening, and I

immediately realized he was a good one. He disappeared back into the cedars, but I

knew he was on a path north that would take him right by me. That familiar feeling

started in my chest again, the one that lets you know it’s about to be game time. When

he finally came by, he wasn’t in the draw at all. He was about thirty yards out in the cut

cornfield. He was massive and gray-faced, but he was only a six-point. Those six points

looked like they were three feet long. I slowly raised the crossbow, sighted in on my

third pin, put it behind his shoulder, and let it fly. To this day, I couldn’t tell you where that

bolt went. It definitely didn’t hit him, because he took a few steps away, stared straight

at the tree I was sitting under, and then walked about two hundred yards north and

picked a fight with a smaller buck. After dark, I searched for the bolt, and the best I can

figure is that it glanced off something and ended up way out in the cornfield. That was

the first time Buck Fever ever got the best of me.

The next Saturday was the first time I could get back out. I went in well before

daylight, got set up, and it was magic. I saw six bucks that day. None came into

shooting range, and most were too young anyway, but I learned something important:

the traffic pattern had changed. Every deer came from the south but didn’t follow the

draw. They worked their way north through the cornfield and then cut across the far

north end. Around 10:30, I saw him. A ten-point, following the same path as the others

had taken all morning. I decided to go for the Hail Mary. I slipped out the back of my

blind and headed north on the opposite side of the cedar row as the buck. I knew I could

beat him there if he stayed on the same line. With my heart pounding out of my chest, I

got to the end of the row. The problem was, he didn’t follow the same path. He cut into

the cedars about twenty feet behind me. When I turned around, we were suddenly face

to face.

It was a standoff. He stood there, nose pointed straight at me, and I stood there

with the crossbow raised. I knew better than to take a frontal shot, so I waited. Slowly,

unbelievably, the buck turned and gave me the best twenty-foot broadside shot

imaginable. A crossbow sighted in with a twenty-yard minimum, and a deer standing at

seven yards exactly ideal, but it didn’t matter. I put the top pin behind his shoulder and

let it go. Nobody had ever told me the sound a bolt makes when it actually hits an

animal, but that sound is something I’ll never forget. The buck kicked, sprinted to the

neighbor’s property line, stood still for about twenty seconds, and hopped the fence. My

stomach dropped. This was worst-case scenario, or so I thought.

I could still see him about sixty yards away, standing next to another cedar row. I

stood as still as possible and then slowly backed out. I walked to my truck and called my

buddy Jake, who lived only about three miles down the dirt road. He said he’d bring his

Polaris if I could find an access point. I went to talk to the adjacent landowner, who

pointed me to the most beautiful lease road imaginable, leading straight back to the

cedar thicket. By the time Jake arrived, almost an hour and a half had passed. We

eased down the road, found the blood trail, and followed it only about fifteen feet into

the cedars. There lay my first buck. We loaded him directly into the Polaris and drove

out without dragging him an inch.

The buck is the picture you see in my bio. He’s not a trophy buck by any official

standard, but he’s mine, and that makes him a world record in my book. I had planned

this spot for two years and sat in that blind every single time, but I learned something

important about deer hunting: sometimes you have to improvise. You can prepare all

you want, but when you’re on their turf, the deer make the rules. And that’s the story of

my first buck, from a guy who has no idea what he’s doing, is too cheap to buy

expensive equipment, and is basically just like ninety percent of you people reading this.