The last fifteen minutes of shooting
light and I was on pins and needles. My son was in a hot spot owned
by a good friend and the bucks had been up and moving. I was full of
anticipation and optimistic that the boy would get to release an
arrow from his recurve bow.
I paced back and forth like an
expectant father, constantly checking the time and keeping an eye to
the sky as darkness was falling fast. The sign I was waiting for, my
cell phone rang and as I answered it, the excited voice of my son on
the other end blurted out that he had just arrowed a big buck. His
voice shook with a rush of adrenaline and his breathing was heavy. I
couldn't help but share in the excitement as he recounted the
story.
He made his way out of the woods
and we made our plan. The shot appeared to be a good one. A little
high and a steep downward angle into the ribs, but he felt confident
in the placement of the arrow. A heavy, keen broadhead should have
done its job and hopefully we'd recover his trophy after a short
trail. After a half an hour wait, we took up the track...
The night was dark, stars in
the sky as we searched for sign with our flashlights. He had done a
fine job of marking the buck's location and the last spot he had seen
him as tore out of the area, but we struggled to find any evidence of
the hit. No tell-tale crimson on the leaves or weeds, no hair to
signal the hit. Only a couple of splayed hoof prints in the mud where
the old buck had leaped a tangle of briars. I tried to remain
optimistic for the boy and we decided to pull out for the night and
hit it again at first light.
After a long, restless night,
we were back at it at day break with a couple more sets of fresh
eyes. We were certain that we'd find the deer piled up in one of the
many hollers and drainages on our buddy's farm. Our little group
covered what we thought was every inch of ground. We did manage to
find the arrow, but the damp fog from over night had frozen on the
aluminum shaft, all but erasing any sign of blood along the length of
the arrow. We were at a loss and after several hours of the fruitless
search, we all had convinced ourselves that the buck was lost. The
boy wasn't so certain and still felt confident in the his arrow
placement. You could see the disappointment and remorse on the kid's
face. It was a long, quiet drive home.
A few days later and the boy
was back at our friend's place, giving it one more shot before the
woods was covered in fluorescent orange with the opening day of gun
season. He took to the same stand where he had shot the big deer and
I kept my fingers crossed that he'd get another crack at a good buck
and erase the bad memory of losing a fine animal.
I hadn't been gone long when my
friend called me with a surprise. “You're never gonna believe what
I just found”, my good friend stated. “I found Drew's buck!” My
pal had watched as a few buzzards circled around a spot on his farm.
He slipped through the woods and made his way to an overgrown pond
dam. There hidden in a low spot, nearly invisible from every angle
was the kid's buck. A fine, mature 10 pointer.
We immediately called the boy
and he climbed down from his stand and rushed to our spot. It was a
bittersweet moment. None of us wanted to recover the buck like this,
but it happened. We examined the deer and just as Drew had described,
the arrow had taken him high towards the rear of the rib cage, hence
the non-existent blood trail. We estimated that the buck hadn't
traveled more than a couple hundred yards, had bedded down in the
hidden spot and then expired. What made it even more of a difficult
pill to swallow is that I had walked within 30' of the dead deer
during our original, early morning search...
After some discussion, my son
made the choice to stop his hunt for the evening and for the rest of
the season. He claimed the buck and checked it in according the to
rules and regulations of the State. It wasn't a tough decision for
him and he had no regrets, other than not locating the deer sooner and the loss of the meat.
Yes, I'm happy that my boy had
taken a trophy buck with his traditional bow in today's world of
speed and technology, but I'm even more proud of the character he
showed. The easy thing to do would have been to take the big buck's
antlers and keep right on hunting and possibly harvesting another
buck, but he chose to do the right thing and for me, that is the real
trophy...Well done son, well done.
