Ok, I'll try this. Painful as it is, I am still very proud of what I was able to do. I am sorry this is long but I know no other way to explain this.
In 1990 we had two either sex tags then during the muzzle loader season. I had gotten permission for a nice private 125 acres that bordered on State property that year. The land owner let me leave my "Swamp Rat" in a pasture near the house so I could come and hunt by myself if no one else was around. I scouted the area and found a nice spot between a swamp and a field that I knew a buck or two was using to come up out of the swamp and spend time with the ladys in the field at night.
Got together with a couple guys I hunted with the night before opening day and we decided to hunt a piece of State property that had been good to us in the past, the first morning. This ment the three of them had to get me and my Wheelchair about a mile in to where we planned to hunt, luckily most of it was on a dirt road. We got there and set up that morning and as the sun came up, so didn't the temp. Before long it hit 70 degrees! And by 9:00 am the guys had striped down to tee shirts and had enough. Two guys had come out to me by 9:30am and we were sitting waiting for the last guy when I heard the unmistakable sound of a running deer, close! I just had time to say, "don't move thats no squirrel" when out of the brush at 15 yards a buck appeared just in front and off to my left. I was using a peep sighted .50 White Mountain back then and one quick motion dropped the nice 6 pointer with a shot through both shoulders as he was about run by me. Wow! Not a bad opening day! I dumped myself out of the chair and dressed the animal. Then, it took over two hours getting me and the deer out to the truck, off to check it in.
All three guys had women folk on their case so I found myself a lone for the afternoon hunt. After a quick clean up I ran up to the private property and jumped on the Rat. It was 1:00pm when a rounded a bend in the Laural on my way to my stand, when there in the logging road was one of the most gorgeous animals I'd ever seen. He whirled and ran back towards the swamp. Disappointed, I continued to my stand where I sat till dark seeing nothing.
I couldn't hunt the next days morning hunt and it wasn't until 12:30 that I was able to get out. Again, I came around the same corner just in time to see him duck back into the laural. As you can imagine I wasn't very happy, I probably just blown my chances at ever getting a shot at this buck.
I went home that night and thought about what was going on here. If he wants to come through at that time then I need to get in there and setup earlier. So I got up grabbed a coffee and went down the bait shop where I figured I'd chat with the guys there until 9:00am then go hunting. While there a friend came in and wanted to know if I was hunting today and if he could come, I said sure and we headed out at 9:00. Thinking about it, I decided to put my friend where I wanted to go. He being a rookie and a smoker, I figured the buck would most likely see him and follow the laural up and away from him. So I setup about 100 yards above him watching a couple of breaks in the laural. Fast forward to 3:15pm, I get a strong rutting buck smell and actually reached into a pocket to see if my bottle of scent had broke or cap came off, it was fine. So hunkered down and scanned the area hard with my eyes. At 3:30pm I see a head and antlers just off the ground as he slowly stepped out sniffing the ground. Holy ****! At 40 yards I had slight quartering away shot and took it. He immediately stiffened up and took off out of my sight. I heard crash, crash, crash, nothing.....
When we got to the spot he stood, there was no blood no hair nothing and my heart sank as I scanned the area, I could go no further as it was a tangle of boulders, blow downs. I tried to direct my friend as best as possible but being a rookie he had a lot to learn, we searched for an hour then backed out to get help. We came back in with the land owners son and his friend and searched with flash lights for a couple of hours, nothing. They kept going to the swamp believing a wounded animal would go low and not high threw the boulders where I kept telling them he went...I went home heart sick that night.
In an effort to shorten this up, three days later I get a call from the land owners son telling me to come quick, my buck has been found. I arrive to find him and his friend. His friend hauls out a a head and hide all bundled up and says he went back in there yesterday with a dog and found the animal rotting, he figured I wanted the head so he did me a favor and skinned the animal out for me, here it is. I was like speechless and had a very bad feeling here but at the same time greatful to at least have the head. I bit my tongue and thanked him.
We found out later the buck only went 50 yards from where I shot it. They just did not look in the right spot. He had found the animal the first night, got help and they dragged it some 600 yards to the road, took it home and skinned it out. I hope he enjoyed my meat, really.
And if he ever comes to this forum and reads this, **** you.
