Having seen nothing most of the morning, I took a short snooze as time wore on.  I woke from it with the sun on my face, warming me nicely.  My watch was broken, but the sun was moving high above the trees, and I figured it was about 9:30.  I was really feeling fine in the stand, and decided that I would stick it out for another couple of hours.

After about a half hour, I noticed movement in the brush about 150 yards away.   Just branches moving in the wind, I thought to myself.  No, wait!  That's antlers!  As I watched, a big deer came into view.  Buck!  Without time for more thought, I raised my rifle and centered the crosshairs.  I saw that I had the scope's magnification selector set to 3, the lowest setting, and was about to change it when the buck looked right at me. 

I squeezed the trigger.

The buck jumped into a sprint, heading down the road, away from me as fast as he could go.  As he disappeared behind a brush pile, I jacked another shell into the chamber and pushed the rifle ahead of the brush, anticipating where the deer would emerge.  He appeared exactly as expected, and, moving with him, I fired again.  He continued his run, through some more brush, and across one of our food plots.  I had a brief second to notice that his tail was down as he was running, a possible sign of a hit.

I started to shake.  Wait 30 minutes on this guy?  No way.  I had to know if I hit him or not.  I lowered my backpack to the ground, climbed down from the stand, got my trail marking tape out and stashed my pack in a brush pile.  I reloaded my rifle, then walked down the road to where the buck first appeared.  I found his tracks immediately.  Big ones.  This was a hefty deer for our area.   Looking carefully around, my spirits sank when I found no blood.  How could I be so stupid?  Why didn't I take the single second to crank the scope up to 9 power for such a long shot?

I followed the tracks down the road to where I took the second shot.  I found a big scuff mark where the deer had turned and crossed into the food plot, but still no blood.  Moving through the brush pile into the wheat field, I continued on the trail.  In the field it took me a couple of minutes to find his tracks, but I finally saw where he had entered the woods.  Still no blood.  

I looked carefully at the tracks on the edge of the field.  What were those dark spots?  I put my finger into the deep tracks, and it came up red.  Blood!  I moved to the wood line, now seeing blood a bit more frequently.  As I approached the thick woods, I heard something moving down in the gully below me.  Stopping in my tracks, I tied a piece of marking tape to the tall grass, then quietly made my way back to the four wheeler.  Time to go get some help, I thought.

As I drove back to Arnold's house, the shakes began to hit me.  By the time I was standing on his front porch, I could barely speak.  "Can you help me," I asked as he answered my knock on the door.  "Of course, " Arnold said.  "Have you shot a deer?"  

"Yeah, I think he's a big one.  I saw antlers, and you should see his tracks."

"Did you find blood," Arnold asked?   I replied that indeed I had.   "We'll get that deer then," he said.

While Arnold changed clothes, I walked back to the shop and took my cold weather gear off.  I knew we would be in for some hard work, and the day was getting warmer.  I changed into a t-shirt and sweat pants, then loaded my gear in the Mule.   "Do you want us to take Lady?" Arnold asked as he walked up the driveway.

I considered.  "No, we better not.  The deer may still be alive, and the last thing we need is for the dog to push him." 

I was somewhat nervous about finding the deer, deathly afraid that he had gotten away, and it was a long ride back to where I had left the marking tape.  Arnold's assertion that we would find him did lighten my spirits a bit, but not enough to stop me from offering a prayer to ask that we retrieve this buck.

We soon found my marking tape, and got back on the trail.  Walking downhill into the gulley, the blood got brighter and more frequent.  As we moved apart, each trying to find where the deer had run, I heard a noise below me.  A flash of brown.  Antlers.  "He's up!" I shouted, then raised my rifle and took a wild shot at him.  No way I could have hit him.  We should have brought a shotgun.

As the deer ran off, we walked down and found the spot where he had been laying.  He was about 30 yards down from the field, and there was a good patch of blood where he had rested.  "Ok," Arnold said.  "Let's give him an hour or so.  We'll go back to the house and eat, then come back."

An hour.  An HOUR.  Man, how can I wait an HOUR.  I'm shaking now, imagine how it will be in an hour.  But I knew he was right, so we loaded up the Mule and drove back to his cabin to get some lunch and watch a little bit of the Outdoor Channel.  While we were waiting, Arnold called Doug to ask him to come help.

At 12:30 Doug and his son Clint showed up on their four wheelers.  Arnold and I piled into the Mule, and we headed back into the woods.  We picked the blood trail up, then began walking, Clint and I spread out in the lead, with Arnold and Doug taking the dregs, staying on the trail.  About 200 yards along the way, Clint hollered at me, "There he is, he may be headed your way."  I ran up the hill, trying to get a glimpse of the deer.  Although I could hear him running, I never saw him at all.

I walked down to where Clint had jumped him, and we found a good bit of blood there on the ground.  The smell of the buck was fierce, he was obviously rutting.  When Arnold and Doug caught up with us, we decided to wait another 15 minutes before pushing on, hoping that this last burst of life from the buck would help him expire quickly.

We sat quietly, talking of this and that, and I was feeling good about the deer.  I was sure that we would get him now.  When the required time had passed, we spread out again, Doug and I taking the lead this time.  "Don't look for blood," they said to me.  "Keep your rifle ready and watch for the deer; we'll stay on the trail."

"Yep," I said, "good plan."   Although it was hard not to try to follow the blood trail, I soon found that I didn't need to.  I was on an obvious deer trail at the bottom of a valley, and with the buck tired and wounded, he could either go straight or go uphill to his left or right.  Straight it had to be.  We pressed onward, and suddenly I saw the buck laying on the ground 30 yards in front of me.  "Doug, I see him!" I shouted.  I had hoped that the deer was dead by now, but as he tried to stand, I put him down for good with another shot.