by Taylor Maas
October 11th, 2017 started similar to any other fall workday. After getting to the office that morning, I checked the weather conditions throughout the day trying to decide if and where I should hunt that evening. As it turned out, the wind allowed me to hunt a stand I had never sat in. This had me excited because before archery season began I made it my goal to hunt several new stands at this specific property in order to minimize pressure and learn as much as possible about different areas around the farm.
As excited as I was to be hunting a new stand, I was skeptical about how successful the actual hunt might be. I can occasionally sneak out of the office early, but this night I wasn’t able to leave until 5:00PM, which gave me less than two hours before dark. On top of that, only eleven days into October, the rut was still weeks away and deer activity had been pretty slow on my last few hunts.
After rushing to the property and changing, I started the 200 yard walk through the timber to reach the secluded food plot the stand was located near. Just as I made it far enough into the timber to see slight openings into the food plot, I was able to see antlers rise in the distance. I stood motionless, waiting to see a white tail bound off, thinking I had been busted before even reaching the stand.
Seconds passed like minutes before the antlers moved again. However, to my surprise rather than bouncing out the far side of the food plot, they dropped out of view as if the buck had lowered his head to feed. I inched forward trying to find an opening in the timber, hoping to get a better view. As I found the buck in my range finder I recognized it to be the largest I was able to get trail camera pictures of over the summer. He also seem to be angled directly toward the four-wheeler path I had been using to access the stand. I crouched behind some nearby undergrowth hoping he would continue up the path.
The buck worked my direction, slowly feeding, before taking a complete 180 toward the far side of the food plot. Figuring the odds of him turning back around and moving within bow range were unlikely, I made the decision to slowly stalk as close as I could. Crouching as low as possible, at times on my hands and knees, I slowly moved up the path toward the edge of the timber.
As I reached the timbers edge, I knew I wouldn’t be able to move any closer without completely exposing myself. Hoping I was close enough to make an ethical shot, I pulled up my range finder to find I was still 45 yards away. While weighing my options, I remembered a hunt the previous week in which I attempted a 40 yard shot on a doe. During that shot, because of the distance, she was able to completely duck the arrow. I decided to take dead aim with my 40 yard pin anticipating the buck would drop just as the doe had.
After releasing the arrow, I was unable to see it in flight and was unsure if or where I made impact. Confident I held steady during the shot, I was still worried because the sound at impact was quite a bit louder than I had expected. As the buck exited the food plot I was unable to detect any indication I had hit him and I started to have doubts about whether my shot was
on target or if I had hit a tree behind where he stood. It wasn’t until I found the arrow covered in blood I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Around an hour later, just before dark the landowner – Ron, Bill, and I returned to where I had found the arrow. Although I wasn’t sure of the shot, we were quickly able to pick up a steady blood trail and decided the shot must have been fatal. As we approached a creek a few hundred yards from where we started, light and the blood trail began to fade. Unsure exactly what direction he headed after reaching the creek, we made the decision to back out hoping to find him bedded on the far side the next morning.
To say the least, I didn’t get much sleep that night before heading back at first light with some additional help. After searching for two hours that morning before work, we had no additional clues as to where he had gone after reaching the creek. That day at work, I spent every free second staring at areal maps trying to figure out where he most likely headed after crossing the creek.
That evening, I returned with Ron to search the neighbor’s property thinking the buck may have doubled back along the creek. After another two hour search I started to doubt I would ever find the buck or if the shot had indeed been fatal. As we started back to his house on the side by side, Ron suggested we drive along a nearby creek to see if he’d possibly made it further into the property than we had originally thought. Just as he finished saying how funny it would be if we found him in a low area leading to the creek bottom I spotted a white belly not 10 yards from us in some thick cover.
I am extremely happy with how my 2017 season turned out. Not only was I able shoot a great buck during archery season, but two months later I was able to harvest my biggest buck to date during the second shotgun season. However, I realize my success in 2017 would not have been possible without the generosity of several others. I would like to give a special thanks to Ron. Not only has he allowed my father and I to hunt his property the last few archery seasons, but he was also extremely helpful during the recovery. I would also like to thank the Lott family for allowing our group to hunt with them during shotgun season each year. Without access to both of those properties, this once in a life time season wouldn’t have been possible.
