Here's a little story for you lads and lasses:
The Unshootable Buck
It was a crisp cool October day as I worked my way back to my favorite woodline. It is a two mile walk to the fields in which I was to encounter the unshootable buck.
As I walked peering into the woods I thought "What a beautiful day I have been given. This could be the day when it all comes together, but if it doesn't I am content."
You see, I had been working awefully hard that season trying to get close to the timber ghosts with reasonable success, but much learning experience. I had even, in fact, arrowed a small buck at 10 yards yet was unable to find it after an extensive search. In the beginning of that year I recall having been highly concerned with shooting a deer and it drove the stress of hunting to the point of work. I decided and was determined to just enjoy myself, for that's what I'm really there for, to enliven and rejuvenate my soul.
I recalled this as I rounded the final bend of the trail. The fields are bordered by a wonderful ridge upon which the stealthy hunter may scan for deer. On the crest is found numerous porcupine borrows and sometimes the inhabitants of them. One graced me with his prescence and decided he might prefer me from a bird's eye view. That was just fine with me.
As I silently worked my way over the crest of the ridge I felt the wind in my face...perfect. I think back to all those times in the last month when, in my haste or inexperience , I was caught upwind. Today would not be that day.
I can see a small portal to the field down below. Binoculars come out from my pocket and find their way to my eyes. Nothing in the field yet. Continuing slowly on towards the field I see the portal growing larger and larger, the field growing larger and larger.
My head pounds with wonderful anticipation as I enter through this portal into the corner of the field. What a sight to see the sunlight breaking through the young aspens, the golden rays washing the leaves in bronze and silver. I begin to hunt down the field edge.
As I go along I realize I am right out in the open and perhaps I should enter the wooded edge for concealment, but unbeknownst to me I would not have that opportunity.
Movement caught my eye. From within those golden rays from across the field a timber ghost gives me a glimpse of his presence yet dissapears as he appeared, like a wisp in the wind.
"Should I go after him and try to cut him off or keep working down the field?" A slow decision may cost me, but that decision was not to be as this decision was about to be made for me.
As I stare into my thoughts contemplating my next move a beautiful buck materializes from the opposite corner of the field. Again, my binoculars immediately come to my eyes and identify him as a fork horn.
The buck is walking...right towards me! This buck is on a mission, he is after the does in the area who have come into estrous as of late. He has one thing on his mind, this could perhaps become his downfall...