FOUR THAT GOT AWAY

     In the twenty-six years I've been deer hunting, four of the biggest bucks I ever saw and had a chance to kill all got away without a scratch. Let's take them one at a time.

1. 1997- I had just started bow hunting and was in my brother Ross's tree stand on my brother Bird's property. Bird had been having trouble with trespassers. The day before the gun opener I went for an afternoon sit in Ross's stand with my borrowed bow. Around 3 pm I heard a shot. It was close. Turkey season was open but this sounded like a rifle. I got down from the stand and walked down the wood road, thinking somebody may be in Bird's stand. Oh yeah, I left the bow in Ross's stand. From the top of the hill I could see Bird's stand. It was empty. The shot must have come from elsewhere. Since I was on the ground I decided to take a leak.....as I looked around I saw the back of a deer just below me. I followed his spine to a large neck and biggest set of antlers I had ever seen outside of a Field & Stream centerfold. What did I have in my hand? Not a bow. The buck pranced away never to be seen again.

2. 2014- By now I had killed quite a few good bucks and even arrowed one of my biggest with the compound bow. I was hunting a stand on a friend's farm where the previous year I had shot my biggest buck ever with the muzzleloader. It was the first really cold morning of the season and the leaves were like walking on potato chips. I heard the deer coming for thirty seconds before I saw it. Just in case it was a buck I was already standing, bow in hand. The rack was the first thing I saw. It was a big, heavy main frame eight point. He was coming right underneath my stand. I froze. He stopped. Looked right at me. Then he lowered his head unconcerned, turned and presented me with a perfect quartering away shot at ten yards. I drew back and found I couldn't. The right leg strap of my tree harness was snagged just above my knee. It's amazing how much you use your right leg when trying to come to full draw. I obviously did not know this at the time. A force greater than my own was at play. The buck looked back at my futile struggle, snorted and disappeared. I sat down defeated. From then on my leg straps are  cinched as tight as a dominatrix's corset.

3. 2016- Same friend's farm. Also, like in 1997, I was hunting the last day of bow season. My nephew Wade had come up to hunt with me because Bird didn't want him shooting a nice buck on his property the day before the gun opener. I was hunting a stand we call "the office." This was a spot I shared with Savage Lynch and his brother Milawyer. It had been an especially slow season, with little deer movement and no good bucks. I didn't have much hope for even seeing a doe. But Wade wanted to hunt so what the hell, the weather was perfect, clear, crisp and cold. Once Wade was set in Milawyer's sky view ladder stand I headed for the office. I had an old pair of tattered wool gloves and a warm jacket. No sooner was I settled in when I heard footsteps coming right for me. The deer was a monster, a heavy rack and big body. I stood up came to full draw.......let me back up a bit. I'd just had eye surgery in my left eye. This was not my shooting eye, but with a deer this big I wanted to be sure to put a good hit on him. So I was mentally checking off all the boxes. I had plenty of time. He never knew I was there. When he turned at fifteen yards I searched with my good eye for the leveling bubble on the bow and couldn't find it. Rattled at my blurry vision, I slowly tilted the bow from side to side before settling the pin. A dangling wool finger from my ratty gloves caught the release and the arrow went wild. The buck spun and ran back the way he had come. Instead of coming up on Wade with bloody hands and a big smile, I told him the whole sorry tale as we walked back to the truck. I could have been the hero uncle. Instead I was the goat.

4. 2021- This one is so fresh it hurts. Ok. I admit it. I'm getting old. But what the fuck? I'm not ready to stop bow hunting. I can still move hanger stands around in the woods and climb in them in the dark. Two out of six arrows went in the bull at thirty yards. I stopped practicing there. Don't mess with perfection. A week ago Friday I was hunting in a location I can't tell you about from a stand nobody knows is there. This was my second season hunting this spot. Last year I'd seen a nice ten point early in the season but never saw him again. I kept an eye on that spot and damned if that same ten didn't pop his head up at 200 yards  and give me a good look. He'd grown. The next afternoon I changed tactics and climbed a different stand the other side of his bedroom. I hoped to cut him off. It began to rain so I screwed in a swiveling tree umbrella. Cozy and dry I sat through the afternoon seeing nothing. Fifteen minutes of shooting light left I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and all I saw was antlers ducking under a hemlock branch twenty yards behind me. I turned back and froze in my seat praying he hadn't made me.  I waited what seemed like an eternity when finally I saw the massive body emerge five yards from my tree to my right. I stood up. Drew back. I settled the pin where I hoped he would step and waited......then that tree umbrella tipped and just kissed the top of my bow. It was enough to distract me and I lost the tension on the back wall of the bowstring. When the string went slack the buck spooked. I bleated him stopped. I still had a shot broadside at 30 yards. But, for the life of me I could not get the drawstring back a second time. He snorted in disapproval of my very existence and vanished in the brambles. Yeah, I suck. I know. But, no time to wallow in it. Less than a month before the shooting starts. Game on.