I really hope some of you have enjoyed reading about my "top 10" hunts. I knew when I began that it would be neat to re-tell some of these stories, but I have really been surprised at just how much I have enjoyed it. Like I often tell my buddy Craig, the memories are the best part of the hunt. When we get too old to run up and down ridges chasing gobblers, or too frail to climb up in a treestand to wait on an old buck, the memories of past hunts are all that we'll have. That's the thing with my mounts, it's not that I'm on a quest to cover every square inch of space with a deer head (although my lovely wife would probably disagree), it's about the memories that come back when I look at a particular animal on the wall. Memories of the entire hunt - either alone of shared with friends.
Alright, can we get a drum-roll please..........................................................
Number 1 - Dec. 8, 2006. My muzzleloader "dream buck"! Ok, I know - big surprise - this was a no brainer. When I came up with the idea for the "top 10" post, and jotted down some of my best hunts to try to arrange 1 thru 10, this was the first one I wrote down. I am almost certain that I will never take an animal of which I am more proud, or have a hunt that excited me more. My apologies to anyone who read my anniversary post about this hunt back in December - hope you aren't bored reading it again.
The entire week of the late muzzleloader season was unseasonably cold, with Friday the 8th being the coldest day of the week. If memory serves me, we hit the high temp of mid-30's around noon that day, with temps falling steadily throughout the afternoon. It had already fallen to right around freezing by the time I got to the farm at 2:30, and was continuing to drop. I was hunting the shooting house overlooking a "Buck Forage Oats" food plot on our lease at the Grove. I was a little later than I would have liked due to work, but I did manage to make it to the shooting house without spooking anything. I had a group of does come out to feed in the plot very soon after I got settled in. Then, about 3:45, I was watching a 6 pt feed directly in front of me when Rick sent me a text message that said something like "just saw him!"
Rick was hunting a draw to the North / West of me and about 150 yards down below the food plot. I don't remember his response when I replied "Big?", but it must have been an affirmative because I do remember opening the window & starting to pay more attention to that end of the shooting house. It must have been about 15 minutes later when I noticed a deer skirting the West edge of the plot. Through my naked eye, I could only make out the back half of the body. For some reason, it looked really small - I remember thinking probably a yearling. Then, I put the binocs on it & JUST ABOUT DROPPED THEM! Even though I was only looking at half the rack, it was the most outrageous thing I had ever seen in the woods! Points everywhere + it seemed 2 ft wide! Needless to say, it was all I could do to contain my heart in my chest! I slipped into a combination of buck fever / got-to-kill him mode. And of course, in all my excitement, I forgot all about the 6 pt in front of me. So, when I throw open the front window of the shooting house to get ready for the mammoth in the woods to step out, the 6 pt just happens to be looking directly at me & immediately goes on point.
The big deer was standing directly behind a brush pile just outside of the barbed-wire fence that surrounds this plot. All I could see was rack as he stood watching the 6 pt watch me. This is where I switch to panic mode. I am sitting there, as still as humanly possible (when your heart is beating upwards of 200 b.p.m.) and mentally kicking myself for alerting the 6. This is where it gets good... Call it luck, coincidence, or divine intervention, believe it or not, Rick picks this moment to take a shot at another deer. Keep in mind - he's only 150 yards from me.So, at the sound of the shot, the 6 blows out of the plot and the MONSTER busts out of the woods, runs across the corner of the plot, and slows as he goes through the fence on the other side. Let me tell
you, this is the first time I had seen him in the open - to a Tennessee boy, a deer this big does not look natural running through the woods!
As he slowed just a bit to clear the fence, I got the Savage on him. He was slightly quartering, but almost running directly away. My shot hit him high in the back, just in front of his right hip, and angled up into the vitals. He DROPPED in his tracks and never even flinched! By this time, I'm so nervous I probably couldn't have told you my own name. All I really remember after the sho
t is taking one last look through the binocs & saying to myself "Oh my God, HE"S HUGE!". I quickly bailed out of the shooting house, reloaded, and sprinted to my prize. After the little jig I danced was over :)) I fired off a text to all my buddies "Killed a Booner at the Grove!". Ok, he wasn't quite a Booner, but I guarantee I would have been no more excited if he had of been!
11 points, 20" wide, 155" gross. and qualified for the Tennessee Deer Registry (our statewide record book). Even though he's not my highest scoring buck, he is definitely the most special. Only another hunter could understand the meaning of killing a deer of this caliber, not only in my home state, or even my home county, but on one of my leases, less than 15 minuets from my house! THIS is why we put in the hours scouting, planting food plots, stretching barbed-wire, and checking trail cams. THIS is why we keep getting up at 4 a.m.
