Almost Mine

Bowhunting for trophy-class white-tailed bucks is usually asking more of Mother Nature than she is willing to allow. Add a cameraman to the equation and she pulls out all the stops.  Such was the case last fall in Bullock County, Alabama. 

Bowhunting, by nature, is an invitation for disappointment.  So many things have to go right.  The stars have to line up just so, and still, the most miniscule of minutia will deny you of your dream. 

My dream was wearing 12 tall points on a wide, palmated frame at least 25 inches wide.  He was one of those “take your breath” bucks – the kind that steps into view and makes it impossible to breathe – that kind of buck.

I was hunting a hardwood bottom about 50 miles from my home in Montgomery, Alabama.  It was a television hunt so an unnamed cameraman was perched in a tall oak tree right behind me.  The rut was coming on so I had my rattling antlers on hand.  I know that many hunters believe you can’t rattle up a buck in Alabama and admittedly it is tough but it can be done when the weather and the early stages of the rut cooperate.  It seemed like a perfect day to me especially considering that for the three days previous it had rained non stop, washing away the fresh scrapes that outlined every creek bottom and timber line.  But now the sky was clearing and the wind claming. Maybe the rut would come alive again.

I tickled the tips of my rattling antlers gently and paused for five minutes.  Then I smacked them together with some authority and continued for a minute or so.  That’s when I caught movement to the north.  It was a buck slipping quietly through the canes, heading my way.  The cameraman was on red alert and soon it was clear that this buck was truly a life-time deer.  I hung the antlers on a limb and froze.  The buck meandered around, never coming closer than forty yards from us, and then bedded down in the canes – broadside!  I could see his hug rack sway when he turned his head slowly from side to side.  He was actually close enough to shoot but the canes provided him with enough of a protective shroud that I dared not chance it. 

He was obviously waiting patiently for the fight to continue and was in no hurry.  A buck of that magnitude never is. They usually have far more patience that their hunters.  For 30 minutes the he stayed bedded – taunting me – tormenting me – daring me -- and then finally stood up, stretched and walked away back from the direction from whence he came.  My heart sank.  I don’t think a whitetail has ever made me cry but this one came close.  I felt the same way I did in the 7th grade when I was snubbed by the girl of my dreams.  Love dies hard, and so does a deer hunter’s anxiety when he sees a buck of such rarity.  “Helpless” doesn’t begin to describe the feeling. Neither does “aching,” “sick,” “nauseous,” or “deflated,” or any combination thereof.

I simply couldn’t believe that I had rattled that monster in to 40 yards and could do nothing about it.

The cameraman and I sat quietly, not even looking at each other, mutually grieving over our disappointment.  Another 45 quiet minutes dragged by and darkness started to settle on the treetops.  It looked like the hunt was over and I was just waiting to hear him announce that our filming light was all gone. I glanced up at him and saw him with his head turned sharply to his left.  Suddenly he turned back to me and with eyes as big as saucers and pointed behind him. When I looked around the tree my heart almost exploded.  Our buck was back – and standing only 10 yards from our tree.  He stood like a statue straining every sense he possessed like radar.  Had I been in the cameraman’s stand it would have been all over, but I was in my stand and was as helpless as a “kitten up a tree.”

I tried to control my breathing and hoped the buck couldn’t hear my heart beating as it thundered in my ears.  The buck wanted to walk past out tree and finally he was standing at arms length from it, still directly under the cameraman’s stand.  He would start around the tree on one side and just before he would give me a shot he would back up and start around the tree on the opposite side. He did this three times as precious seconds of light ticked away.  Finally he started a around the tree on my side and I thought the unthinkable was actually going to happen.  When I saw his head clear the tree trunk I knew he was committed.  I hauled back on my bowstring and gingerly as one can pull 70 pounds, praying that I wouldn’t spook him.  Just two more steps and this adrenaline-packed drama would finally end in my favor.

He took another cautious step.

Just one more step I urged under my breath.

The buck started to step forward in to certain peril and then stopped mid step and dropped his nose to the ground.  At that moment my heart turned to stone and the dying rays of daylight revealed my nemesis – a skinny orange plastic jerky wrapper that the cameraman had dropped unknowingly.  I knew how it would end even before it happened.  The blast of air created by the snorting alarm of the great deer came as no surprise, nor did the speed with which he vanished back into the canes.

He was almost mine.  So close – so very close.

There is nothing to be gained by describing the horrors of the torture I envisioned for the cameraman. But suffice to say that boiling him in oil would have been an act of kindness compared to what I had in mind!