A Reason To Be Thankful

“I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. I see the animal not only as a target, but as a living creature with more freedom than I will ever have. I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature’s way of fang and claw and starvation are a far crueler fate than I bestow.” 

Fred Bear

There’s something about the fall of the year that awakens primal urges in man and beast.  Days begin to shorten, the sweltering heat of summer begins to loosen its grip on the land, and the verdant green hills begin to slowly transform into stunning shades of gold, scarlett, and rich mahogany.  Winter symbolizes death, but in the autumn season there is a display of life that is truly a joy to behold. 

The animals know that the bony hand of winter is coming, and with it comes hardship and deprivation.  When the hardwoods begin to drop their bounty of acorns and nuts, there is a feeding frenzy in the forest.  Every animal in the forest, squirrels, raccoons, turkeys, deer and bear are all packing on as many calories as they can for the coming winter.  The urge to feed is powerful and undeniable. 

The urge to mate is just as undeniable too.  Deer in particular, are driven by a powerful impulse to pass on their genetics.  Hunters have long known that the period of deer breeding, known as the rut, can offer spectacular hunting opportunities.  Mature bucks that are normally extremely cautious and reserved will often throw caution to the wind and will abandon any semblance of wariness while in pursuit of a receptive doe. 

Hunters too, answer the call. The sights, sounds, and smells of autumn awaken the wolf inside the hunter.  The first cool morning of September, when, for the first time since spring, you can see your breath floating in the air, signifies that the time is near.  Fall is every hunter’s favorite time of year.  The opening day of archery season, for most hunters, has been eagerly anticipated since the season closed eight or nine months earlier.  Once again, the wolf can come out of his cage and prowl the fields and forests.  It’s enough to make you want to howl at the moon. 

The approach of fall in 2015 came just like any other.  It had been warmer and drier than usual, but the life cycle kept to its schedule.  Acorns dropped and animals ate them.  Though archery season had been slow for me, I was blessed with a very large black bear on the opening day of rifle season.  This provided valuable meat and (for my wife) far more valuable bear grease. 

A 380 pound black bear from the north Georgia mountains started my 2015 rifle season off right.

When my wife’s parents returned from an early November hunting trip in southern Illinois with news of warm temperatures and slow deer activity, I decided that I would try to take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday and try to catch some late rutting activity in the midwest.  It had been a few years since I had traveled up that way, but the possibility of a later-than-normal rut hunt weighed on my mind. 

And so it was that I found myself headed north on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Illinois would be having a three day shotgun season, Friday through Sunday, and archery hunting would not be allowed until Monday.  Having loaded the truck on Friday, I awoke, had a wonderful breakfast with my family, and got a casual start on the six hour drive to Illinois. 

Arriving at my destination that evening, I drove around the county just observing deer movement.  The temps had been quite cold; the day’s high was only in the 20s, and deer were in the fields.  I got up the next morning and attended church with some friends in the area and then drove out to their farm and hung a lock on stand.  I spent Sunday evening as I had the previous one, just driving and looking.  Between the two afternoons, I had seen eight shooter bucks in the fields, and most of them appeared to be either in close pursuit of a doe or searching for one to pursue.  It was a very promising sign. 

Monday morning broke cold and clear, 22 degrees and zero wind.  I was sitting in a ladder stand positioned on a fence crossing that my father in law had a game camera watching.  He had sent me a series of pictures of a beautiful 10 point standing as if posing in front of the camera.  It was a mental image I would reflect upon several times in the upcoming week. 

Just as dawn broke, I saw three does coming my way across an open pasture.  They stopped about 150 yards away and all looked north.  I followed their gaze and saw a large, dark bodied deer with its head down and tail up, waving in the air while the deer tracked in circles like a hound searching for a scent.  I knew without even seeing the head that it was a buck trying to sort out the scent left by those three does.  He momentarily raised his head before disappearing over a rise in the field and gave me a glimpse of nice, tall antlers.  The does, uninterested in his pursuit, changed direction and left the field for the safety of a neighboring woodlot. 

In a few moments, the buck reappeared where the does had just been.  I already had my grunt tube in my hand and when he stopped to survey the field, I gave him a couple grunts.  He looked my way and immediately began trotting in my direction.  With my binoculars on him and his attention on me, I noticed for the first time that the entire left side of his antlers was broken off, presumably from fighting with other bucks.  These big mid-western deer are hard hitters.  I quickly decided to let him pass, but he gave me a wonderful opportunity.  Having correctly zeroed in on the source of my grunt, he came to within 20 yards and just stood, licking his lips and steaming up the calm, cold air.  If I had wanted to take him, he presented a perfect shot, but I let him continue on.  Lucky for him, he was missing half of what would have been 140 inches of antler. 

My father in law had left his home in North Carolina very early that morning and arrived in time to greet me when I came out.  I retold the morning’s events and we made plans to hunt the afternoon.  We hunted all day Tuesday with few deer sightings.  Wednesday, the temperature began to warm up a bit, and the wind really picked up.  Even with warmer temps, it was a challenge to sit all morning in the stand in the constant wind.  My father in law got several glimpses of a large buck tending a doe throughout the day Wednesday, but he could never get more than a glimpse of it and certainly had no shot.  On a hunch, I hung a climbing stand in a tree on the southwest corner of the woodlot he had been hunting in so I wouldn’t have to carry it in the next morning. 

The next morning came with a temperature in the 50s and steady 9 mph winds out of the southeast.  This was Thanksgiving day.  Thanksgiving day has long been my favorite day to spend in the woods.  At home in the mountains of north Georgia, the week of Thanksgiving is usually a very good time to be in the woods with bucks beginning to rut.  I’ve taken several deer over the years on Thanksgiving day, so it’s extra special for me. 

But this day was a little different.  I wasn’t back home in north Georgia, I was several hundred miles from home and from my family.  My wonderful wife and my three beautiful children would be celebrating Thanksgiving without me and frankly, I missed them dearly.  But God had granted me an opportunity to do something that rarely comes to me, so as day began to break, I found myself in a prayer of reflection and thanksgiving for His blessings bestowed upon me. 

As the sky began to lighten and shadows began to take shape, I took stock of my vantage point.  From the corner of the woodlot, I could see several hundred yards to my south and east.  Almost immediately, I could see a very nice buck about 600 yards away, slowly cruising a fence row.  He soon slipped out of sight and I began glassing my surroundings.  400 yards to my southwest was the wide racked 10pt that my father in law had seen the previous day.  He was at least 150 inches but he was locked down with a doe.  They were bedded in an open field.  When she stood to feed, he joined her, and when she bedded again, so did he.  I watched him use his wide antlers to scratch an itch on his haunches.  He was a definite shooter. He wasn’t going to leave her, but if she entered my woodlot, I knew he would follow. 

They were joined by two young bucks who nervously approached.  The big buck gave them a glance that told them well enough to keep their distance from his doe.  The young bucks put on a little sparring match and when they drifted a little too close for his comfort, the big buck stood up and stared them down, flattening his ears down in a show of aggression.  That was all it took for the young bucks, they left the scene and in a few minutes were passing in front of me on the fence row at less than 25 yards. 

I hoped that the doe would follow the young bucks’ path when she got up out of her bed.  If she did, her big suitor would follow her blindly right in front of me, offering an easy 23 yard shot.  But it wasn’t going to happen.  A few minutes later, I glanced their way and saw her bounding across the field from west to east with him a couple hundred yards behind.  I don’t know what spooked her, but I watched her disappear onto the neighboring property with the buck chasing after. 

The big wide 10 locked down with his doe were in the far right corner of this picture, 400 yards from the fence row.

I kept my binoculars trained on the last place I saw them.  I hoped to see them return, but they never did.  Instead, only a few short minutes later, I saw a large buck running my way across a green pasture to my south east.  At first, I thought it was the big buck and he had lost his doe and was running trying to find her again.  But when this buck appeared out of a stand of cottonwoods, I could tell he was a different animal altogether.  Through my binoculars, he looked like a tall 8 or 9 point with great mass.  He was heading across the field about 150 yards from me.  The wind was blowing hard from him to me so I grunted loud and long.  He heard it, put his nose to the ground, and turned my way.  The primal urge to breed would be his undoing. 
I was already standing, so I took my bow off its hanger, lowered my binoculars and grabbed my rangefinder  He was walking with a steady purpose and every step was bringing him closer to me.  On the edge of the fence row, there was a patch of thick brush that had limbs, stumps and debris that the farmer had neglected to mow.  He was headed right towards it and I knew when he got to it, he would have to make a decision; turn right or turn left.  Right, and he would likely disappear without offering a shot.  Left, would likely lead him by me.  After reaching the thick patch and checking the wind, he turned left. 

When the buck hopped the fence behind the old red truck cab, he was only 43 yards away.

He hopped the fence right behind an old red truck cab that had been dropped off years earlier to use as a ground blind.  When he hopped the fence, I was already ranging him.  43 yards.  I kept the rangefinder on him in a continuous read mode.  38, 36, 32… when it read 32, I realized that this was going to happen.  The buck of a lifetime was about to present me with a shot.  29, 27,23… I dropped my rangefinder and drew my bow as he stepped behind a tree.  He was passing behind me at 20 yards.  I had to lean out over the rails of my treestand and crouch to get the top limb of my bow clear of the bow hanger screwed above me shoulder.  I settled the string to my nose and the peep sight to my eye.  I found him in my sights and I let out a soft bleat with my mouth to stop him.  He froze in mid-stride.  I settled my pin behind his front shoulder and loosed the arrow.  I watched the arrow disappear into his side and I saw the tuft of fur where the arrow struck begin to change color as he turned to run.  He bounded away like nothing was wrong, but I knew better.  The broadhead passed completely through him, slicing its way through both lungs.  Death would come quickly.  He stopped after about 80 yards and turned back to look my way.  I saw his back legs begin to weaken, and in the next second, he went down. 

I drew my bow as he passed behind the tree on the right side of the trail.  He stopped broadside, standing between the two nearest trees. 

I was overcome with a flood of emotion.  I had already spent a portion of the morning thanking God for all the undeserved blessings in my life.  Now I had one more reason to be thankful.  Lying less than 100 yards from me was the biggest buck I had ever killed.  The adrenaline rush that caused my heart to race, pumping extra oxygen to my brain was now crashing.  My hands and knees shook.  My phone buzzed.  It was my father in law, messaging me to congratulate me on the trophy.  He saw the buck go down.  My fingers wouldn’t work.  I couldn’t hold the phone still enough to respond.  After a few minutes, I sent a message to my wife, telling her I just smoked a giant. 

After sitting for another hour, hoping to give my father in law a shot at the big 10 we had seen earlier, I finally got down so I could get my hands on my deer.  I really hadn’t spent much time looking at his antlers once I determined him to be a shooter. He was much bigger than I imagined.  And as we began to admire him, we realized we had seen him before. He was the tall 10 point that we had pictures of on the fence row.  Those pictures were one of the compelling reasons that convinced me to come on this trip in the first place. 

He had been fighting hard and had broken some of those impressive tines, but this didn’t make him less of a trophy for me.  He was a majestic animal, a mature, exemplary sample of his species.  He would put food on my table and a wonderful trophy on my wall.  But mostly, he would give me a story to tell and a memory to keep forever.  I'm truly thankful.