A Great Deer Season Story from a Reader
gengberg December 18th, 2009
I haven’t shot a buck in Wisconsin in over 20 years. I haven ‘t seen one
I’d take, so rather than shooting a smaller buck, I let the young boys
grow and held off for a doe, hoping my time would eventually arrive.
Unlike in other parts of Wisconsin, where bucks do mature quickly, I
hunt the northern forests, where large bucks are fairly uncommon. In the
9 years we’ve hunted my present land, our group of four hunters has only
taken one mountable buck.Usually I will hunt perhaps 15 days of archery and throw in another 6 or
7 days with a firearm, but this year, with our grouse population high,
on most days I chose to take a shotgun and the dogs out after grouse
rather than do much archery deer hunting. This past Saturday was our
opening of the gun deer season, and an hour before sunrise found me in
my favorite decent weather tree stand. My back was to a large tag alder
swamp. To my left was a more open brushy, aspen flat, to my right a
fairly thick brush and treed area, and straight ahead was a slightly
more open hillside. None of these directions would have given me more
than a 75 yard shot, quite doable unless the deer was running. It was a
warm late-November dawn, the temp just below freezing, and no breeze. It
was still and quiet, and sounds carried a long way.
About 9 AM, something caught my eye to the left, and there was what
appeared to be a really nice buck, walking away from the alder swamp at
a moderately fast pace perpendicular to me, at perhaps 35 yards. Before
shooting, I did want to verify the number of points, took my safety off
and steadied to examine him through the scope. It would be only another
20 yards before he entered brush too thick to shoot. He heard the safety
click, and stopped with his head behind a tree. It was a great shot
presentation, except I didn’t know the true size of his rack. But when
he started walking again, he was very acceptable, and as he entered a
small brushy patch, I put my crosshairs on his low center chest and
squeezed off the shot.
I concentrated on where he reentered the alders, waited about 20
minutes, and went to that spot. There was no evidence of a blood trail.
I radioed one of my partners, and we searched and searched for an hour
without finding any sign. At that point, we went back to where he was
standing looking for blood or hair, and still nothing. It was then that
I noticed the sapling in the photos below.
The sapling is 1.7 inches in diameter.
