Last November 19, 2012 I started a thread titled "A 100 Year Old Man". It obviously struck a cord with a lot of folks. Terry Green finally archived it after 15 pages of posts. It's a really interesting thread if you'd like to open it just to get yourself primed for this thread. Basically, it's about a buck that came by me last November that I believed was the oldest deer I'd ever seen. As a matter of fact, I put a lot of thought into that buck and unless I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure which buck he used to be. And if I'm correct he should be 12.5 years old. I recently wrote an article for the PBS magazine about this specific animal but it hasn't been printed yet. Well, this morning our wind was supposed to be out of the WNW. I got to my stand to find it was actually out of the SSE. It was still dark so I gave it about ten minutes to see if it'd switch. It didn't, so I chose another stand about 400 yds. away that would work (one of the perks of having multiple stands pre-hung). At 8:15 movement caught my eye and here he comes. I couldn't believe my eyes but he was less than 25 yds. away. I put the binoculars on him. It was absolutely the same deer from last year. Only this year he looks a hundred and one. He has that same humped spine, the same arthritic hips and the same laborious gait. But what struck me the most was his face and eyes. They made an impression on me last year but even more so this morning. I would have bet a lot of money he wasn't going to make it through last winter. But there he was. Last year he had the remnants of a tiny fork at the top of his left antler. This year his rack has degenerated even more. They are just two maybe seven inch spikes that appear bladed with a bunch of heavy beading around the bases. They also both appear to angle slightly back (which I didn't remember seeing last year). I had a good steady wind from him to me. He got about 3/4 of the way passed me and all of a sudden stopped and looked my way. You're probably not going to believe this but he actually turned his body and faced me and just stared. I raised my hand and saluted him, I was already standing up. He deserved it. Then he walked away. Yes, it was only a spikehorn but it will undoubtedly also be the highlight of my season. BW
Topic: A 101 Year Old Man (Read 3566 times)
