It's been a tough season for me this year. The landowner came through and bush hogged all the fields about two weeks before the season, cutting what had been waist to chest high grass down to ankle height. Of course, this totally wrecked the deer patterns and pushed them off the mountain top and down into the draws and hollers off the bluffs. I've managed to see a couple of deer, and even one quality buck, but never was able to get a shot. In years prior, I've bagged a couple of deer by this point in the season and I'm hunting a mature buck to finish things out. Well, this year, I'm skunked. I even spent a whole day in the field with fog coming and going, and twice when I was fogged in to 10yds visibility, I could hear does bleating within 25-30yds of me, but not see them. My hunting time has been strained with a new job and my wife overbooking my free time despite my clear instruction not to do so. I've put a stop to that, but it cost me several quality days afield. Very frustrating, indeed.
Well, I got back from a crazy busy trip to my corporate office very late Friday night, and decided to sleep in Saturday, rather than try to hunt on just three or four hours sleep. I headed out around lunchtime, and was surprised to find my lease empty of any other hunters. I stalked around a bit, and decided as the wind shifted to hike down into a creekbed and settle into a position in the rocks which gave me view of a multi-intersection of six game trails coming down this draw and crossing the creek, back and forth. About 330p, I'm sitting against a rock and I hear the unmistakable sound of a deer walking through the dry leaves behind me. Then I hear a grunt, and it's close. Every hair on my body was standing up, and it must have taken 15-20sec to turn my head enough to see a buck at about 15yds, coming down a steep incline from my right to left, behind me, picking his way through the rocks. I watched him and tried to figure out how I'd get my gun around, and noticed he was following a doe, about 15' ahead of him going down the side of the ridge. She got to a point where she turned directly away from me, and I could see the backs of both her ears. He was still trailing her, still grunting literally with every step he took, and he went behind a pair of trees, giving me the opportunity to get my gun around in his direction. (Unfortunately, not a Weatherby on this hunt.) From my position, I watched him step out and turn, hard quartering away, and I held on his last rib, on his right side. A breath in and about half out, and I squeezed a round off. He buckled, and bounded down the steep incline. I lost sight of him behind a rock ledge, and saw the doe out of the corner of my eye bound down and stop on a small flat below the incline. I never took my eyes off where I thought the buck had gone, however, and the doe eventually turned and trotted off. I waited a few minutes just in case, and then eased myself down the slope amongst the rocks to try to find him. He was piled up about 20yds from where I shot him. He's the biggest buck I've ever taken, and even these pics don't do him justice. He has four points on the right, and five on the left, but also has four 2" or longer brow tines on the left side, and a half-inch sticker on the right brow tine. His G4 on the left is broken off, but I don't care. The processor said he was about 155lbs dressed, and he was confident the buck went 200-210lbs live weight, if not a little more. That's a big deer for northern Alabama. I'm guessing right now he's 5.5yrs old, but my taxidermist will save the jawbones for me so we can age them and know for sure. Can't wait to find out.
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