Hillbilly Smackdown

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[BuckNrut]

HillBilly Smackdown Story:

Chris, Mike Boles and myself saw the buck while pre-season scouting and hanging stands in August 2005. We were riding our ATVs back to the cabin and there he stood at the edge of the food plot behind the cabin. I could tell he had a tall, compact rack and he looked to be a good deer. I had no idea we would cross paths again but luck smiled on me the day after Christmas.
My plan was to work all day then make the four and one half hour drive to Cathole, settle in and be ready to hunt the next morning. Well, work was slow that day and I decided to head for Cathole around noon. I figured if traffic didn’t slow me down I might make it in time for a short evening hunt just before dark.
It was windy and raining very hard on the drive west so my hopes for the evening hunt weren’t very high. When I arrived at the cabin the rain had cleared but the wind was howling. I figured I might as well go sit behind the cabin for the last couple of hours before dark. Who knows I might get a shot at a doe.
I had been in the ladder stand about thirty minutes when I spotted three deer about 150 yards away. They were feeding in the food plot, a nanny doe and two fawns. Before I could get into position to make a shot the doe had worked her way to the edge of the food plot nearest my stand. Several tree limbs prevented me from making a clean shot so I waited. All the while the wind was literally rocking the ladder stand back and forth.
One of the fawns had worked her way out to the middle of the field. While I was looking at her through my scope I noticed movement behind the fawn. “Maybe that’s the big doe I thought”. I moved my rifle to get a better look at the deer behind the fawn. It wasn’t the big doe but it was a good  buck. I couldn’t get a shot off immediately due to the wind moving the stand so much. While I waited for the wind to fade I watched the deer through the scope. I could tell he had long beams and he carried good mass all the way out to his beam tips. “That’s a shooter for sure in my book” I thought. 
I had to wait about five minutes or so for the wind to break. When it finally died down I carefully placed the crosshairs on the point of his shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger. He dropped in his tracks.
I don’t normally get too excited before I make a shot at a deer but after words is a different story. The wind had picked back up by now and coupled with my level of excitement, I wasn’t sure I could get down the ladder without breaking my neck.
As it turns out Richard had a similar encounter with this buck a few days earlier but he was much farther away and never presented him with a good shot. Richard did the only ethical thing he could do-he had to let the deer walk. I guess that’s one of the reasons I was so glad to be there when he took his big buck this year.
I did very little to “earn” this deer. All I was thinking about was taking a doe for the freezer. You never know when the “Hunting gods” will smile on you. 

Score numbers for the kill:

8 pt

Date Killed                               12/28/05
dressed weight                       134Lbs
gross score                             119"
age                                           4.5 years
 inside spread                         12.25"
bases were                             4.13" and 4.25"

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