Opening weekend of the Southern Tier whitetail firearms season is now in the books. Judging from social media posts, there are a lot of happy hunters out there. I’d say the taxidermy business might have a good year also. It is a bit odd for an opener that has gone from t-shirt weather to near blizzard conditions on Sunday late morning.
I was able to hunt the morning and late afternoon and a few hours Sunday morning, as has been the norm in recent years, work limits my other otherwise die hard desire to go at it from before sun rise to after sunset. In early ahead of the crowd, Out late as to not bump any deer on the way out. Still I am thankful for work and being gainfully employed.
Stan Sawicki, our good friend, scored early in the first hour with a nice 8 point buck on the ‘J’ Ranch. My wife saw deer throughout the morning. I would eventually lay eyes on a monster buck at 10 am, which provides a very different story as follows…
Going on towards 10 AM, I had yet to see a deer from a favorite stand. Over the years it has been deemed a meat stand as it covers several well used deer paths with nearby scrapes and rubs, and well known escape routes when bumped by other hunters on adjoining properties. This year not so much. It was getting warm out, time to retrieve Stan’s buck, and get him out of the woods to be taken care of. I got down, and slow hunted my way over to and down a ravine to the main creek on our property. Our ATV was parked above the creek on the other side. Having bulldozed a path some years ago, it makes for a convenient spot to park it. Where we cross the creek has several smaller ravines and feeder creeks meeting up together there. Deer cross the same spot for much of the same reasons.
As I neared the bottom, I got a phone call that a buck was just shot nearby. Having heard the shot, I thought Stan or Lee may have shot. While on the phone I thought I had heard something, only to look up to see a monster buck coming up over the knoll not 15 yards away and coming straight at me. I had no where to go, as he would pile drive me 20 yards further to the creek just below me. Given that his rack was 5-6″ out past each ear, with long dog catchers (brow tines) and impressively long G2-G3 tines, I would not survive the imminent impaling. For an immeasurably short moment in time, It would be my final moments. The pure power of such a large buck was breathtaking at the same time.
I dropped the phone, and awkwardly went to retreive my 30-06 from my shoulder. The buck then threw out his front legs in an effort to stop as he didn’t like this big ugly hunter in his path, and maybe just as startled as I was. His lower jaw nearly touch the ground as he slid. He came down the knoll with so much power that his hind end came around the side and up over, basically flipping over, swapping ends for a lack of a more precise description. He slammed down in front of me at less than 5 paces. Aside from being a bit more than thankful for not being driven to the creek and ventilated in 5 or 6 places, this bizarre and violent circumstance was his finally moment before piling up… not.
As quickly as he went down, he was back on his feet, motoring back up the hill. Having finally got the gun up I found his leading edge of his chest, and shot. Never touched him, but I can center punch a sapling like nobody’s business. I could not get back on him again as he traveled up and over. I found the blood trail coming down the hill, where he went down, and back up. Mostly a few drops here and there. After meeting up with the hunter (shall remain nameless) that put this all into motion, we tracked the deer for several hours, out into a 100 acre crop field and down to the river. Finally determined it to be a flesh wound. Upsetting to wound and lose a deer, but merely disrupted him from chasing does. Hope to see him again in more ballistic friendly circumstances.
Lee and I went back out later that afternoon before the storm came in. We both passed on a fork horn buck that went by both of us a half hour before legal sunset. Uneventful sit by any comparisons of the day. It is about as excited, elated as I might possible get while totally terrified, and fearing my last moments given a fateful brief moment in time. I am humbled and thankful that this was not my last day of deer hunting, and your learning of this from a memorial page. In all my 32 years of hunting whitetails this was a first. I have heard stories from others of rutting bucks aggressively coming at them, either on purpose or incidentally while giving chase on a hot doe. I know a neighbor that dropped an aggressive buck just mere feet in front of him, at closer range than my encounter. That buck did not get back up…
Good luck to all of you for the remaining days of the season and that your whitetail close encounters be less precarious than what you have read here of mine.
-MJ
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