The Recovery

Saturday morning was not the typical January winter temperature in south Alabama. Following weeks of colder than average temps, 51 degrees seemed balmy, especially with rain and a strong southerly winds. The morning hunt ending around 10:00 a.m. only produced sightings of (1) spike buck at ten yards which appeared extremely nervous and (3) does crossing into heavy cover. Whitetail deer rely on their keen sense of smell and hearing for protection. All of their senses are not optimum during these types of weather conditions and not surprising to me did these animals pass without stopping in the winter wheat, oats, and white Dutch clover. Back to the same stand around 3:00 p.m. conditions remained unchanged. I enjoy the view with a pair of Nikon 10x50 binoculars. These come in handy to check deer gender at long distances and judge smaller bucks which are passed to grow into more mature individuals of the population, a practice of the quality deer management concept. (Google QDMA for more information). 4:00 p.m. - another spike, or possibly the (3) point buck I saw two weekends passed crossed at about 3o0 yards not even paying attention to some does in the green field. The peak rut in this area is generally during the last week of January which is also the last week of the Alabama deer season. It can happen over night, slow buck movement in an afternoon and rutting behavior with bucks running everywhere the next morning. Through years of experience, I've learned that a hunter just has to be in the woods as much a possible to catch the days of peak rutting activity. 5:00 p.m. brought low light conditions from dark overcast skies with continuing steady light rain. Catching movement of a deer crossing at a long distance, I quickly found a tall rack "shooter" buck with the binoculars. During wet conditions, I also take the Remington Model 700 BDL in .270 which "Santa Clause" brought to me when I was about 12 or 13 years of age. That's been a long while back! Having hunted successfully with a Tasco 3x9x40mm scope for many years, I eventually upgraded to a Leupold Vari-X II in 3x9x50mm which gathers more light. The rifle is zeroed in at 100 yards. (Not many locations in south Alabama offer a shot in excess of 100 yards!) The buck stopped long enough for me to get the crosshairs on him. My guess was that he was at about 300 yards so I held 2 inches high above the line of the back and fired. I did not see the typical hind legs high kick innate response following impact. The buck just dropped slightly with his head held high and ran into heavy brush. During the rain I rushed down to the location I believed the buck was standing and found no sign, no tracks, nothing...Running out of daylight I headed back to the truck to get a Maglight to continue the search for any sign that I may have connected with the .270. Each hunter knows the sinking feeling in their stomach when it becomes apparent of a complete miss. Then comes the second guessing of why did I even take a shot at this distance? The longest shot I've ever made is 264 yards. I eventually gave up the search and headed home, replaying the scenario over and over in my mind. Discussing the ballistics for the 130 grain boat tailed soft point over the cell phone with my brother, a very accomplished deer hunter with some big trophy class mounts on the wall, he encouraged me to return the next morning to continue the "forensics" to find some closure for the hunt. Following about an hour of searching on Sunday, I decided as a last resort to walk my line of fire toward the elevated shooting house. What a sense of relief to find hair as a result of impact approximately 50 yards closer than I had estimated. Within a few minutes I found the buck at about 70 yards. The area I hunt has a large predator population of coyotes and bobcats, and the rare sighting of black bears. Unfortunately, the coyotes had already cleaned this 9 point buck from the shoulders through the hind quarters. I recovered the rack for photos to give this buck the dignity he is worthy of. The shot at the determined distance of 250 yards was perfect and humane. Sportsmen never want to waste an animal and will make every effort to recover it. The conditions were all against me on Saturday evening but recovering this buck made all the effort worth while. I am resolved that the coyotes need a feast every now and then! I'm off next week to host my dad, brother, and nephews at the camp for the final week. We have been getting together the last week of January since I moved to Alabama in 2000. Hopefully, I can share some very exciting outdoor encounters from these upcoming adventures in the field.