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On this particular opening weekend we
weren't seeing very many deer. Skip had shot a young doe but the
rest of us (David, Mike and I ) not so much. Now it was Sunday
afternoon, I had spent all day in the Blueberry Swamp Stand (east
side) and I was scheduled to go back to work the next day. It kept
going through my mind what my work schedule was for the coming week
and whether I should postpone work obligations and stay another day
at deer camp or just come back the weekend after Thanksgiving and try
again. The decisions were not easy to come by but fortunately I
didn't have to make the choice:
About ½ hour before sunset I saw a
deer moving down by the swamp, about 80 yards down the hill. I
noticed antlers and that they weren't large or numerous. However,
seeing that we had so little venison this weekend I wasn't going to
be particularly picky. I confess, I was in the “if it's brown it's
down” mode. If I had seen this same buck early on Saturday morning
I probably would have passed on him but on Sunday end-of-day, I was
not hesitating.
The buck was walking at a moderate rate
from right to left, north to south and I started shooting. The first
shot was through some brush and just hurried the buck a bit. The
second shot was the same as was the third. My fourth shot was taken
when the deer was finally in a clear shooting lane (which I probably
should have waited for in the first place) and I finally connected.
I could tell I hit him well as he disappeared from sight. I figured
he went down and after my self imposed wait of 20 minutes I climbed
down to investigate.
He was lying about 20 feet from where I
hit him and very much dead. Only one hole in him, by the way. A
young six pointer with one broken off point (I wonder how that
happened?!). Not a trophy but a provision from God for which I was
very grateful.
