I met Austin for the first time at this week's Colonial Outdoors meeting. It is always a pleasant surprise to have some young blood in our group, not unlike the tradition of passing on the love of the outdoors to the youth.
I deal with many in their teens and 20's (the age of my kids) and to know there are good folks like this is refreshing.
Here's is the story of his deer:
As far as the buck I shot Saturday evening goes, it was kind of a spur of the moment spot to hunt. It was 4pm and I was taking my climber back into an area I had only hunted once this year. The area is semi swamp land that that has a lot of stagnant bog ponds and low areas that hold water and a lot of reeds.
On the way to this area you have to go through a thick holly patch that has a lot of oaks throughout it. The area has always provided a good travel route for bucks, but is hard to hunt from up in a tree due to the fact that usually you only will have one or two clear 10-15 yard shot and you can't see very far. Well, as I was walking through I come across two fresh scrapes that looked like they had been worked that morning. As soon as I saw them I began looking for a tree near them I could climb, but there wasn't any good ones near them except for one and it would be putting me in a position for my scent to be blowing right across the scape's. Frustrated, I decided to just sit on the ground and see what happened.
Now I said before that you couldn't shoot more than 10 or 15 yards from up in a tree in this area but on the ground it is a different story. There are several shots up to 50 or 60 yards plus you can see for 100 yards in almost 360 degrees. I knew that I would at least have a good chance of seeing some deer by deer by doing this. I found an old tree that had blown down during hurricane Fran and got positioned with the root ball on my back and the trunk to my side. I could only hope this would break me up enough so I wasn't spotted.
For the next couple of hours I did some grunts and bleats and just scanned the area with my binoculars hoping I would arouse a buck. Around 5:55pm I was scanning the woods and I heard a squirrel about 20 or 30 yards away freak out. I figured it had either seen me move ,or him and another squirrel were going at it. I didn't think much of it at the moment because squirrels fussing is a constant thing, and I had heeded their false warning countless times already that afternoon. As I began to sweep the woods back towards the noise of the squirrel I caught a glimpse of a body 30 yards in front of me down wind. I've been wanting to see just how good my scent control and scentlock are and I guess that was a good sign of them working pretty well. Needless to say I was caught of guard at the moment because the deer had just seemed to appear. Apparently the squirrel had been upset for a good reason and I should have been paying closer attention. I saw instantly that the deer had a descent rack and had to scramble to get into shooting position. Fortunately the deer was behind a lot of trees and I had enough time and cover to get ready. I raised up my muzzle loader and found a hole he was about to walk into but I wasn't able to get situated in time. He was quartering towards me by this time and was about to walk into a second hole that would barely provide a clear 21 yard shot. As soon as he stepped in I made a bleat with my mouth and he froze. At 6pm I placed my cross hairs on his front shoulder and squeezed off the shot and placed a 245 g. hollow point in his boiler room. He took off tail tucked and I knew he wouldn't be going far. He ran about 50 or 60 yards, and I don't even know how he made it that far with the amount of blood that he was loosing.
Any time I go hunting it's like a prayer meeting in the woods. Either you're praying just to see a deer, praying the deer comes close or praying that you find him after you shoot him. This buck was one of just being thankful because how short of a distance he ran. That's not always the case though. The first buck I shot this year I gut shot him and his guts closed up his wound so I had no blood. The only reason I had a clue where he was I saw his eyes shining at me when I was looking for blood and I backed out. I went home and just sat for 2 or 3 hours and I could not even eat. I prayed, prayed, and prayed a little more. A lot of times people say they got lucky shooting or finding that deer and I'm guilty of that too. Really luck had nothing to do with it, prayer and the Lord allowing you to find or take that deer is what the real truth is.
The first thing I do when I get in the stand is have a word of prayer because no matter how much time or planning I put into a hunt (or how little) I know the real truth is God can bring a deer from anywhere by me. A lot of times though I think He decides to teach me patients because I sometimes go for days without even seeing a deer. No matter what kind of hunt I have though, even if it's just looking across a field, being out in nature and just enjoying its beauty is just a blessing. I guess I could say I've never met an atheist hunter that I know of. This year of hunting has been my most blessed year. I was able to take my first deer, a doe, with my bow and I have been able to shoot three 8 pointers with my muzzle loader. This will definitely be a year that will stick in my mind.
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