My hunting partner and teaching colleague Warren and I met at the main intersection in town at 5:45. His father was with him again this year and I hoped his day especially would be a success. He has come to our spot for two years now on opening day and has yet to see a deer.

I turned the key in the ignition and my battery was dead. We pushed my car to a free lot and took off. We were now officially "running late". It was a clear night and I knew daylight was coming soon. We loaded our guns, checked our safeties and headed to our stands. We dropped Warren's dad off in a natural funnel for deer when they are being pushed. Warren and I were going to sit in eyeshot of each other this year. Too many years we had deer walk right in between us only for one of us to lose it. This year seemed to be promising because we thought we had the area pretty well figured out. Warren had done most of the scouting by setting his bow stand up right in this area. He had seen a lot of deer, especially in the last week.

As I reached my stand, I looked at my watch...6:58. I was late, but I did not kick anything out, so that meant that the deer had not yet dropped down into the "Bowl" as we called it. It resembled a huge bowl. The temperature was about 55 degrees, and for southwestern N.Y. in the winter, that is a tad warm. Two seasons ago I sat in this area and froze my butt off with 15 degree wind chills. So, as I laid my coat down and got comfortable, I scanned the woods, looked over in Warren's direction, but could only make out a little orange. He was about 100 yards away. Oh by the way, we decided this year to hunt this area because it is the thickest, nastiest area in the woods. You only have a few old logging trails to shoot down but the deer were making their own roads across them.

At 7:05 I heard what I thought was a deer jumping a log. As I peered through the screen of saplings, I could see a deer's legs, and a bit of the body. It appeared to be out for a leisurely walk. I watched the movement for about five minutes and then I noticed that a particularly large sapling next to the deer was swaying back and fourth. I listened carefully and could hear antlers rubbing tree. I began to get really excited and my hands started to shake a little... this deer was a bonus to me because I knew it was bigger than a spike or a fork, to be rubbing that tree. And in my hunting career of over 20years I have never gotten anything larger than a four point. Today I had convinced myself to use at least one management permit, and take the first big doe I saw, for my freezer.

I looked at my watch again it was 7:15. I looked back up and saw the deer moving again. This time he was headed right towards me. I still could not see the head clearly, but every once in awhile I caught a glimpse of his horns. Then at about 50 yards, with a large oak and a lot of brush between us he stopped. He took one step from behind the tree and my eyes practically fell out of my head. This was by far the largest deer I had ever seen up close and alive. They don't get much bigger than that I thought to myself. And I started to laugh...don't ask me why...but I quit shaking and actually started smiling.


As the buck began to walk toward me and off to my left I slowly raised my 870 express. When he stopped, I stopped, when he walked I raised. Finally, at 30 yards I had my gun raised down my shooting lane where he was about to step out. I was down wind of him, with the sun in my face. And I was staring at least at an eight point. It was then that he stopped, turned and looked right at me, like he knew I was there the entire time. I had my open sights on his front shoulder but not quite good enough for a sure vital shot. He needed to take one more step. His body tensed and he looked ready to bolt. As he took a step I leaned to the left and squeezed the trigger. I stood as soon as I saw him fall onto his side. I had knocked him right off his feet. I could not believe my eyes when I saw him get up, shake his head, and Run!
I pumped another shell into the chamber and took another shot. I killed a tree. I watched him run out of sight. With the dry leaves though I could hear him slow to a trot and fall. Then I heard him get up again and run, then he crashed. I went to the sight of impact and saw tons of gray hair and lots of blood. I was worried though, because he ran an awful long way for it to have been a heart shot, and there were no bubbles in the blood so it was not a lung shot.

Where the heck did I hit this deer?!!!

Just then, unannounced, it started to sprinkle. I immediately reloaded my gun and got on the trail. The deer bled profusely for about 150 yards and then stopped bleeding. I saw two places where he had fallen. I stopped my pursuit, and doubled back to where Warren was. As I approached quietly he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders questioningly. I put my hand above my head to let him know I had shot a big one. He said, "how big?" I said, "His antlers were way out past his ears." He then told me that he had seen that buck fighting another one before. "I didn't want to tell you because you weren't hunting very much and I didn't want to frustrate you."
He was right, knowing that I could not get out on the last days of bow season, it would have frustrated me.

We agreed to wait an hour and let him settle. We didn't want to push him any farther for two reasons. First of all he was headed for "Posted" land. Secondly, we did not want to push him past another hunter.

I went back to my stand, sat down, and had a drink of water. I ate one of my sandwiches. I had to chuckle when I looked at my watch. It was only 8:00 am. I felt like I had been in the woods now for hours. At 8:45 I looked behind me and saw Warren coming. When he got to me, he said "I could hear him running after you shot, but I couldn't see him. I even think I heard him fall."
"You did." I said. Then I told him that he had stopped bleeding. We followed the trail again to where it ended. I stayed there while Warren went in a cross section for about 25 yards and found another drop of blood. I then "cross-sectioned" the woods and found another drop. Then we found another good trail. After about 100 yards we found where the buck had laid down, gotten up, walked five feet and laid down, gotten up, walked another five feet and laid down. We must have kicked him out again when we were trailing him but he didn't go far.
As we stood at the last bed we heard him run. But he only went a few yards and stopped. I took my safety off and we split up on either side of the trail. We hunted him for about 70 yards until we hit a logging road where he had laid down again. We quickly determined that this deer was not going far. He had gone into thicker, nastier stuff than where I shot him. If he was really hurt bad, we had him cornered. Warren made a big swing around the patch of blown down trees and scrub to push the deer to me. When he got to me, he looked bewildered.

"That deer is still in this little section. There was no blood coming out." He said. I told him I did not want him to waste his whole morning on me, and that he should go back to his stand. "If this deer is as big as you say I'm making one more push." He replied.

I told him I appreciated it. I also told him that I would stay right where I was because I could shoot a few different ways, and they were the only directions that buck could go. I told Warren to go back down the road and get right on the blood trail and climb into this stuff. He agreed. Warren had not been gone for 2 minutes when a shot jolted me into reality. "MARK!!! GET DOWN HERE!" Warren cried. I put the safety on and ran like crazy to where he was. He met me out of breath, and smiles ear to ear laughing..."take a deep breath." He said. "Is your gun still loaded? He is right there and he can't get up, go finish him."

So I walked up to the biggest buck in this county, and quickly put him out of his misery with a shot through the heart.
Warren and I pulled the deer out of the ditch that he had climbed into up against the roots of a fallen tree. He had gone as far as he could when Warren climbed into the thicks right next to him. Warren had looked over and saw the buck staring at him. He told me the buck had tried to roll like a horse to get up, but as he did, Warren shot for the heart, but hit the foreleg. His sabot slug left a tiny little hole. That's when I came running in.

He was the most magnificent deer I had ever seen outside a picture in outdoor life. He was a Ten Point with A small eleventh point that would count in Pennsylvania. His antlers were massive, thick, high and wider than my shoulders. Bucks around here we agreed do not have that kind of mass. The other part about this buck was how big his body was. He had to go 200 lbs. It was the biggest deer either of us had seen. After getting a good look at him I determined that he was the buck I had shot at for the last three years up here. I finally got him.

Well it took a good hour and a half to clean and drag him down to the house of the property owner we were hunting with. As soon as we did we cooled him with tap water and hung him. He was huge.
We didn't see another deer for the rest of the day. But we were excited to get this guy back to town.

This buck had a 19 7/8" spread and went about 200 lbs. It is a buck of a lifetime, and is simply the best thing that has happened to me this year. I am going to get him scored but I don't have the money to get him mounted. I know it is a shame, and there aren't a lot of hunters as diehard as me. However, we have a fourth child coming, we had to make our house bigger for that purpose, and we will have to buy a bigger car as well. I have to go with priorities, but I can do a European mount for now and cape out another deer some other day. Priorities are priorities. I've got the horns, the pictures and the memories of my buck of a lifetime and my gun season of 1999.