Recently, I've had a father and his two sons start hunting on the property along with me, they had heard about Prince and they agreed not to shoot him because I had been watching him.
The evening of November 15th was calm. Very little wind, maybe a slight breeze. The two sons had come out that night to hunt and after coming up with a game plan for hunting spots and exit times, we started out towards our spots. I went to a blind at the edge of a field, they went to a stand around 150 yards from my spot (give or take distance).
In my blind, I prayed we would have a successful hunt, that the guys could get a deer, and that I could get Prince, well any good deer really, but especially him. After a while, about the time the deer start moving around this area, I hear movement. At first I thought it was a squirrel, given how rapid the footsteps seemed to crunch the fall leaves. But, it sounded, bigger. I looked to my right, and I see a deer walking just inside the woods bordering the field. Ugh, it's just a doe. She walks parallel to the field through the woods and into the clearcut and disappears. Guess I just have to sit and wait some more.
At this point, I was hoping to have seen more deer enter the field, but it was 5:20 pm and light was about to start fading fast. I sent a text to the guys and said I would get out of my blind at 5:30 if nothing showed up in the field. Put down my phone, and hear crunch, crunch, crunch. It's coming from behind me now, the one place I can't see while in my blind. I knew it was a deer, no mistaking that. It had come down a path behind my blind that deer have come down in the past, an old logging road through the clearcut leading to the top of a hill. I leaned over to see through the window on my left. I saw a big deer, with antlers shooting skyward. It was Prince. A stroke of luck to see a buck come out so early when all I had were night pictures and the fact that there were no does in the field to "attract him". My guess is he was hungry. Quickly, I put on my ear muffs and cocked the hammer on my Winchester and aimed. He was now about 45 yards away, and walking down the edge of the field. The gun was pulled up, I made a "MEH" sound, at he stopped broadside. Perfect. Crosshairs landed on his shoulder, the hammer came down, BAM! He hunched his shoulders and ran up into the woods. Thank you Lord, I got him!
The easy part was over. The guys came and helped me blood trail, but we only found little splotches of blood on the ground. Sometimes we'd lose the trail, but we'd pick it back up again. In the end, after two hours of searching, we couldn't find him. Where was this buck? How could he run this far? Didn't I get him with a heart shot? Just, how?!?
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