Sipsey has the story correct, but for the presses, we are going to use the following story because it might be more believable :
Barbara and I have some friends in Great Bend Kanssas that we visit every November...coincidence,...maybe
. This November was slightly different in that we choose to go a week earlier than normal due to moon phase.
For weeks I had been stressing about the choice as I was concerned that any changes could make hunting a little more difficult. We might be too early and miss any rutting activity and historically it has been much warmer the week earlier than my normal trip. I don't like the heat much and a tough hunt in cold weather would be much more enjoyable than a tough hunt in the heat.
See, I live with the heat most everyday of the year and for a guy that breaks out in a sweat eating breakfast (in case you didn't know,I'm a bit bigger and hairy'er than average), just getting away to a cooler place is half of the vacation.
Well, I wasn't disappointed in any way. I was greeted with below average temps for the week and on the first day, the rutting activity was phenomenal!
My friend Jake and I spent the first day hanging some new stands and were blessed with sightings of
several quality deer in the process. It was difficult sleeping the first night as I anticipate what might happen come sun up.
Sunday Morning, I make my way to the "Big Jim" stand and everyone else went to new stands. Upon arriving at my parking spot, I realize I had forgotten a couple things and had to retrieve them. This put me a little late at the stand, but I wasn't worried as I have seldom ever seen a deer from it before 9:30.
I sat down and proceeded to nod off. When I opened my eyes, there was a very nice doe standing in front of me at 10 yds and a bit nervous... maybe I was snoring. She wouldn't allow me to make my move for a shot and she quickly left the area.
Over the next few hours, I had several deer visit most of which were young bucks except one. He was a very nice ten pt, but smaller than the last buck so even if he had given me a shot, I would have passed.
Eleven o'clock rolls around and a quiet morning was interrupted by some obvious rutting activity. I raised my bino's to notice a very nice eight pt destroying a tree fifty yards out in front of me. Oh yeah, he looked good, but still he was an eight and I guessed about 135" (I later measured him at 140"s). I was bit unsure of what I would do if he presented me with a shot as I have shot bigger there and this is still the first morning.
The buck worked over a scrape near the rub and then instead of following the trail that lead in front of my stand, he made a wide loop only to get down wind of me. I was nervous as I still hadn't decided what to do.
Normally I would have grunted to try to bring him in but I had left my grunt call behind (I felt very naked without my call). The buck kept checking the wind but never let on that there might be something wrong (I can only assume that the rising thermals kept me from being detected).
As I stood in wait of what was about to happen, he
proceeded to walk right to me stopping at eight yards to destroy a cedar tree. I examined him very closely I thought. I noticed that he had a small kicker coming off of one of the G2's and that he had considerable mass in his main beams.... He had me at the kicker!
I eased my bino's down and waited for a shot and waited, and waited...just then a smaller buck came in and I prayed he wouldn't put the screws to me. In fear, the smaller buck eased on and the larger buck moved to a scrape about 20 yards out in front of me. I slowly jockeyed for position and when he stopped to lick the overhead licking branch, I let him have it!....oh oh! what the heck just happened! I watched the arrow go through him a bit high and considerably back. I was sure I had just gut shot this beautiful deer and I became sick immediately. My buck ran to my right where it was quite open and at 30 yds, he began to do the wobbly leg and stumble as he tripped forward.
In disbelief, I reached for my binoculars normally found strapped to my chest but couldn't find them.
I had to take my eyes off the buck to find them hanging under my arm pit. I was able to retrieving the bino's in time to see the buck tipping over in plain sight not 40 yds away.
I was relieved that what I thought was a grievous error turned in to a very quick dispatch.
Upon assessing the situation, I determined that during the shot, I had snapped the bino bracket. I was lucky to make a killing shot with that kind of interference.
I stayed in my stand and waited for my friend to join me. Although I had been relatively calm to the shot, I was now shaking hard enough to make the tree I was in shake too.
An inspection of my buck not only revealed the kicker and main beam mass, but a very nice split brow tine to boot. In addition to the entrance and exit wounds, the dark pasty blood on my arrow lead me to believe that I had pierced his liver(this was later validated). I couldn't have been happier.
"BigJims" stand has been named so for good reason. From that stand I have taken three bucks and a few does. All three of the bucks have been standing in the same scrape when I shot them!
That day, everyone saw "big" bucks and they looked forward to opportunies in the near future. Unfortunately however, activity quickly slowed to a complete halt. We were able to finish the week with the harvest of a small whitey doe and one large mule deer doe.....oh yeah... and thoughts and discussions of next year
Thanks for the kind words guys and no, I didn't die my beard for camo, that is natural.
BigJim
Topic: Big Jim Kills Deer (Read 1444 times)
