Having arrowed a super buck early in the season, I had been searching, without success, for another outstanding trophy to hang my second buck tag on. Since killing my buck on October 18th, I hunted a month hard, put some more venison in the freezer, but had yet to see or find sign of another really large buck. Sunday morning, I went wandering into an area I rarely hunt because of its remoteness. I was amazed at the large shredded trees and giant scrapes everywhere. Tuesday found me hiking an hour before sunrise to be in place there and hope for the best.
The sun rose on a beautiful crisp morning. It wasn’t long before 2 does fed near me. Out of nowhere, a large buck charged them like an NFL linebacker, nose to the ground and grunting like a pig. I had chosen to hunt this day with my T/C Contender in .308. A tact driving, deadly pistol if ever there was one. I swung with the constantly moving buck and touched off as he entered a small opening between some trees. He collapsed in his tracks. Though not the biggest buck ever, he had great character that I immediately loved at first sight and loved even more on the ground.
I now realized what I had done and why I hardly ever hunt here. I had some serious work to do! I skinned, quartered and caped him out. I then hiked out to my car, went home and changed to light weight clothes, grabbed my freighter back pack and hiked back in. I loaded the 60# of venison into the pack, shouldered the load, and home he came. I have repeated said, in shape hunters kill more game, no argument.
I still have a doe tag left, which I really don’t want to fill just yet, never wanting to end the best 11 weeks of the year early. I found a really big buck yesterday while out hunting. Where he came from I just can’t figure. With two more weeks left in the season, I will try to put my friend Mike on him. Barring that, I can only hope he’s around for me next bow season.
