Big Boy

I woke in my tent for a quiet morning hunt in Oklahoma. I decided to sleep in, which really irritated my hunting buddies. They thought I needed to get out really early to do any good. Everyone had switched their stands so I found which ones were open and then snoozed a little longer. It was quiet, and peaceful. I needed the rest.

After a while I felt like it was time to go hunt so I skirted the hunt area to my buddies stand. He had hunted there a couple of days without seeing anything. I slipped quietly into the stand and settled in. I had been there for only a few moments when I heard a quiet sound. I listened closely and tried to pinpoint its location. There were hundreds of squirrels in the area and false alarms were common. I noticed a little movement to my right and as it continued, a Buck with a large rack came into view. He had his head down and was checking out a group of deer beds that were right by the stand area. I took aim and fired. I thought he was hit well but couldn't get another shot before he disappeared into the brush. I waited about fifteen minutes and settled down before trying to track him.

The buck left a good blood trail for a few yards but then the blood stopped. There wasn't even a drop. The trail in the leaves intermingled with the other recent trails and I lost that as well. I went back and started a circular search pattern of the area and this provided no luck. I then decided to walk out all the major trails in the area. It took about three hours to locate the Buck. He was big and had left no trail to this point. What a relief it was to finally find him. He was much bigger than I had originally thought.

I walked to the top of the ridge on the way to the truck and jumped two Does just up from the stand. At the top of the ridge I spotted five deer running across a large field about three hundred yards away. The Buck with the three Does was huge. Twice the size of the one I had just taken. A smaller Buck brought up the rear. I watched as they ran into the brush.

I walked to the truck and brought it close enough to get the deer out. I had a cart to put the deer on and it made the hauling a lot easier. At least it did until the wheel broke off the cart. I drug the deer to the truck and loaded him and the cart for the trip back to camp.

After dropping off the truck and deer at camp I went back to the same area to hunt for a doe. As I topped the ridge above the stand I heard a sound to my right. I slipped back over the ridge and down a slope, closer and closer to the sound I had heard. I still couldn't tell if it was a deer or something else. I looked down into a deep ravine and there was a Doe. I dropped her and went back to get the truck again.

As I drug the Doe to the truck my buddies showed up and helped with the loading. They were amazed I had taken two in just a few minutes and still had a good morning sleep.

Sometimes it just works out right.