In late December 2011, I thought my whitetail season was coming to a close in a just a few days. It had already been a great year for me in the whitetail woods, because I had scored on a nice 10-point buck in November. But that week I got a call from some friends inviting me to hunt in Northern Mississippi in mid-January. What a great surprise ending to the season.
Arriving in Memphis, and then driving to deer camp in Northern Mississippi, I knew it would be a great week. I was in a treestand that afternoon at THE classic deer camp with a great group of guys. But the only problem turned out to be the weather. Temperatures were in the 60s and 70s and pouring down rain. Needles to say, there wasn't much moving for the first three days as this weather continued.
On day four, my hunting partner and I moved locations about 30 miles Southwest of where we'd been hunting to an area that we knew hadn't been hunted at all that season. The weather was going to be interesting that day, and I didn't have much faith that anything would be on the move. But with a change of location brought new opportunity.
We set out that afternoon with climbing stands on our backs. The temperature was a muggy 70 degrees, but the wind was howling at 40 miles per hour. We had about a mile walk in to where we set up. I dropped off first and selected a tree overlooking a short section of a driving trail. My hunting buddy continued on several hundred more yards before setting up. At times I thought I might actually be blown out of the tree. But while I was in the stand, the temperature dropped 40 degrees!
As the evening approached and the wind continued to howl, a 180-class giant charged straight at me to within 30 yards. My bow was already in hand and I had just so happened to have used my range-finder to mark the exact distance of the spot he was moving toward. My heart was pounding, because this happened out of nowhere! But as he got to the 30 yard point, he stopped, sensed something was amiss, turned on the spot and trotted away. Four other bucks appeared and trotted off with this monster, fading quickly into the thick CRP and saplings. It took me 10 minutes to stop my heart from pounding out of my chest and to regain my breath. I was sick from the loss of the opportunity on the largest deer I had ever seen.
I held out hope, but the night was closing in quickly. I kept replaying the moments in my head as the last light of the day faded. But then I saw movement from right to left at 20 yards in front of me on the trail. It was dark enough that I could only see the dark shape, and at first it appeared to be a turkey bending over to eat....yes, my eyes was playing tricks in the low light. Then as it took one step further I saw that it was a buck! The bachelor group had come back around. I couldn't tell how big he was, only that it was definitely a buck.
At full draw now I had to look to the side of my pins at the deer, then back through my sights to make sure I was on the target and looking at my 20 yard pin. With a black pin on a black shadow, it was difficult to line up my sights. This could be the 180-class giant, and I wasn't going to miss this opportunity.
When I let the arrow fly, I knew I made a perfect shot... I could just feel it. The buck ran to his right, again into the CRP with the other bucks that I didn't even know were there following him into the darkness. I was shaking, and texted my buddy that "I may have just smoked a giant!".
About 20 minutes later, I climbed down and with a flashlight, began to search for blood and my arrow. But I found neither. There had to be blood or a bloody arrow, because I knew I made a good shot. About an hour later, my buddy joined me in the search, but we found nothing. It would be a long night as we decided to back out, and come back the next morning. We would hunt the same locations the next morning for our last day in the stand.
After returning to the stand and hunting that cold, calm morning, I saw nothing for several hours. I decided to climb down and look for the deer from the night before one last time. In the daylight, I could find no blood, but I held out hope, because I couldn't find my arrow either. So as a last-ditch effort, I decided to walk in the direction that I saw the bachelor group take off running. I found him exactly 80 yards in that direction. The arrow had passed through one lung and stopped in his liver. Coyotes had gotten to his hind quarters, but I was so excited to have recovered my deer finally.
It wasn't the 180-class giant, but instead an older buck with a busted main beam. He was still a great trophy to me and the end of a great week of hunting in Mississippi, and the perfect close to the season.
