I propped my bow against a water oak and unbuckled my pack, letting it drop to the ground. I wasn’t worried about spooking deer anymore. The first and only shooter buck I’d seen in nearly two weeks had just rocketed to the next county.
The sun beamed overhead, and I wriggled my water bottle free from the side of my pack. I dropped to the ground and leaned my back against the pack. If I were a smoker, I probably would’ve lit one up about that time. I was parched, hungry, and dejected. Blindly, I reached into the bottom of my backpack to rummage for the Perfect Bar I’d stowed in there a few days prior. I washed the crumbled, dry bits down with lukewarm water and chewed on the bitter reality that I’d just blown what would have been a chip shot at a good buck.
That morning, I’d helped my cousin track a buck, and I was riding the coattails of his success, hoping to punch a tag myself. I was still-hunting through a creek bottom when I heard a deer trotting through a patch of switch cane not twenty yards ahead of me. I froze, and instead of tucking into some cover or at least dropping to a knee, I immediately drew my bow and waited for him to pass through an opening.
I could see his rack bobbing through the cane. He wasn’t big, but he was big enough, and I would have been more than happy to wrap my tag around him. Instead of passing through that opening, which would have given me a shot at ten yards, he turned down the path and made a beeline toward me. I didn’t even have time to consider a frontal shot. He got one look at me and bolted.
Those encounters seem to happen (at least to me) more often than not. In my play-by-play replay, I can dissect my failures with surgical precision and even offer best solutions. But that’s part of deer hunting, especially if you have the sick desire to put yourself through the torture of bowhunting from the ground. A lot can, and does, go wrong. For some reason, those failures keep me, and a lot of other hunters, coming back.
That same season, I managed to find a group of does during the pre-rut. I kept tabs on them, and when things really started to fire up over the next couple weeks, I hung a set over a community scrape at the intersection of a few trails. I watched several small bucks work that scrape and harass the does in that area. One evening, I finally got a glimpse of a shooter buck.
He was out of bow range and chasing a doe. When she finally started coming down the trail, there were only a few minutes left of legal shooting light. By the time he came grunting down the trail, I couldn’t see my pins.
I had to sit for another half hour in the tree before I could escape without bumping them. I tried not to make any movement. My heart was racing. It was so calm I could hear him munching on acorns. Every time he’d grunt, my legs would shake. Eventually, they worked off into the dark, and I quietly made my way out. I returned to that spot the next morning, but it was like all the action dried up. I didn’t see a single deer, and I never saw that buck again.
By that point, it was January, and I had yet to fill a buck tag. I had to switch it up, so my dad and I decided to rifle hunt together the following weekend. I packed a bag and headed north. Deer typically rut the week after Christmas or the first week of January in that part of Mississippi.
Rather than post up in a few historical stands, we decided to find the freshest sign and hunt from the ground. It was eerily quiet for peak rut, and just before we decided to pack it in. I heard footsteps in the leaves. I could see a deer feeding downhill from me, but I couldn’t tell if it was a buck or a doe.
When I finally caught a glimpse of antler, I couldn’t help but think of the buck I watched the week prior. That buck dwarfed this one. But that thought was fleeting. My dad and I get a few opportunities to hunt together each year, and I thought it would be fun to drag a small buck out that day. I shouldered the rifle and kept my eye on that buck as I found him in the scope. I squeezed the trigger, and I listened for his crash as he bounded off. He didn’t make it forty yards.
Before starting our drag back to the truck, dad and I just hung out, snapped a few pictures, and recapped our morning. We weren’t in a hurry. Had I killed that other buck, I probably would’ve passed on this one. In fact, dad and I probably wouldn’t have hunted together that day. I still wanted to fill my other buck tags, but I also just wanted to enjoy that hunt.
I don’t think I even kept the rack from that deer, but it felt great to punch a tag after struggling for most of the season. It was a good reminder that deer hunting is just tough sometimes. Other than witnessing a well-placed shot, immediate gratification just doesn’t exist in the deer woods. I appreciated that hunt (and that deer) more than I might have if I hadn’t struggled that season. So, those tough hunts, whiffs, and blown opportunities? They’re part of what makes it so rewarding when you finally catch a break, and they keep you coming back.
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