As it so often does, my meetings ran over and I found myself shuffling up through the woods at 3:45 cursing my luck when I heard footsteps that sounded louder than mine, made by something with more on his mind than I had on mine. I was close to a ladder stand that I hadn't really intended as my final destination. As I crept up the ladder stand I thought to myself "I know I left my facemask and grunt tube on the porch at camp. Just my luck.
I managed to get up the stand without any major clangs and turned around only to see antlers coming through the red barberries toward me at 40-50 yards. I immediately thought "YOU GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME!!" From first sighting to arrow loosed not more than 45 seconds. He closed the gap and of course chose the "wrong side" of my stand for a lefty. I had only a few seconds to make the shot before he disappeared on the other side of a white pine right next to me. As I was overthinking my options and wondering if I had a steep enough angle for a killing shot he stopped dead and looked up at me. DECISION MADE!!! Arrow on the way. Double lunged him. He didn't make it 90 yds and piled up. WHAT A FEELING!!! 190 lbs field dressed and a beautiful heavy horned,
3 1/2 yr old PA mountain buck. Thanks for all the support, advice and friendship from a great bunch of folks on Tradgang. I've enjoyed everyones stories more than I can put in words. Still, it's sure nice to write one this time.
Topic: First Traditional Buck (Read 1642 times)
