Cafeoutdoors.com: A day / weekend to rember

Per dabs request, here is the deer story:

So, kid #3, my only son is in college at Rolla. He's neck deep in studies, a girlfriend and living the college life. On a normal year, he and I would have duck hunted at least a half dozen times and gone bow hunting a few times, by now. But alas, time marches on and the time we get together is less and less. He called me early last week and said he was coming home Thursday night. The plan was to duck hunt Friday and deer hunt the weekend. I'm sure the fact that we are having the best year in the last 20, in the blind had something to do with his decision. Getting texts and photos of the kills over the last 3 weeks has been pretty rough on the kid. He loooooves to hunt.

So he get's home Thursday night and gives his mom some hugs and spends a little time with her. The kid is smart that way. He knows she's not tickled he's going to be "home" but spending most of it with me, hunting (he also was smart enough to stay for the Sunday dinner, before heading back).

Friday morning, we head to the duck blind. We've been whackin' and stackin' all season but it has slowed a bit. In short, the duck hunt was not great. One lone greenhead made an appearance and the boy dropped it. We were out of the blind by ten. We went home, rounded up the deer stuff and headed to Montgomery County. We got there in time to bow hunt the afternoon and we both saw deer but decided not to take one, unless it was a "shooter." None of those came around.

Saturday morning we woke to the sound of wind howling. Nothing we can do about it so we head out to our stands. I put him in what I thought would be the better stand. It was a little more out of the wind. I went to a stand overlooking a big field but the wind was hammering me. After a few hours, I let him know I was moving into the woods, where there is a stand that has some protection from the wind, behind a pond levee. I never made it the stand. Before I could get there, two yearlings bolted out of the field I just left to within 5 yards of me. They were jumpy but not because of me. They kept looking over their shoulder at something that was behind me. Eventually, I heard something back there as well. About that time, the two little ones bolted back to the field and I slowly turned to see what I heard. It was a doe, walking fast with a buck following, as close as she would let him get. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw more movement behind him. It was at least 4 other bucks, from a spike to another shooter. The first one I saw was clearly the best. I was leaning against a tree but could not get around it to use it as a rest. The wind was blowing from me to the deer but they had doe on their mind and never seemed to spook. I had to spin my body slowly but quickly enough to get the shot before I was busted. I got the gun up, had him in my sights and chose a lung shot because he was walking. I pulled the trigger at about 40 yards and he only went about 75 yards. Double lung shot. He was a 12 pointer.

The boy helped me load it and we gutted it at the barn. Since the weather was warm, I packed it with ice and got it to the meat locker pretty quickly. The boy headed back out. Knowing there was at least one other shooter and the fact that he saw a nice one as well, gave him the motivation to get back out. He also knew they were in rut and not paying much attention to their survival instincts, mostly their breeding instincts (always seems to be the downfall of the males in any species).

I get back from the locker and tidy up the cabin. About 4:00 I light a Punch Gran Puro and pour some Jameson over ice. I pull up a chair on the porch and watch an beautiful, albeit windy sunset. I don't even get halfway trough the cigar and never finished my first drink, before I get the text from my son: "Buck down..."

He was hunting the big field I was hunting earlier in morning and the other shooter buck came along with his nose in a big doe's arse. Probably the same doe and he likely went from the #2 buck to #1 earlier in the day. His tenure was short-lived. He dropped at about 4:15. He was 11 points and big bodied.

Since he shot his late, we dressed it in the barn, packed it with ice and took it to the locker Sunday morning. We donated that one to Share the Harvest.

Since I'm not a big deer head guy, we're just going to do European type skull mounts. The guys at the locker looked at me like I was crazy; "You don't want this caped?" They felt it was some sort of criminal offense

What a great weekend. Got to spend some time with the boy and got a father/son double header, with nice bucks. The duck hunt was just icing on the cake.

I never did get to finish that cigar....

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