Lucky: The Tale of a Backyard Buck

This has remained one of the greatest deer rut seasons I have seen since I started hunting. The activity was consistent and honestly most of the time frequent. With the coming of a cold snap, the ability to hunt did however become more of a hardcore hunter's game. There were a few days after work that I was able to get out but the cold bit, and it was tough to keep motivated.

On the afternoon of the 11th, I just short of begged Rachel to let me go out. Not only did she say yes, she asked if I would take her as well. I was dumbfounded as it was 23 degrees and breezy. There was still snow on the ground... Nevertheless I had her collect her gear and out to the field we went.

With the fall progressing as it did, it was not expected that either Rachel, nor Nick was going to be able to hunt at all this fall. Because of this, we only had a few stand put up and we were booted from the area I fell out of the treestand awhile back.

We headed to Nick and Lisa's place near Madrid and went right back down to the creek bottom that has treated me so well in the past. With the wind swirling a bit, there was only one viable stand and I knew I had to get Rachel into it. The boxelder stand.

After getting her settled I doubled back into a short stand on a steep incline up against the ravine face. I was pretty much cursing the deer woods all evening. There was no vibe, all magic was gone, and I had not seen, nor heard a critter all evening. My mind was playing tricks on me and I swear I heard a shot. The voices in my head were so loud I swear I could hear people talking in the woods.

It then occurred to me that there was a voice. I was petrified that maybe someone walked in on Rachel. I had my phone in my hand all evening and I pulled it out to see 'Rachel McWifeington' scrolling across my screen. IT NEVER BUZZED...

I open my phone and I can hear my wife from 150 yards away.

"WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!!!"

I told her to stop yelling and at this point assumed she had shot one. She thought she had made a marginal shot and it ran towards me. I was cursing myself for not keeping my eyes peeled and was now worried sick I missed it and had no idea where it went. I got out of the stand as quietly as I could and double far from his possible path to get Rachel. We checked where the shot was and I will never know how she threaded the shot. She got LUCKY. I found blood and it was fair, and 80 yards ahead was Rachel's arrow with lit lumenock. We backed out and waited at the house.

We conversed with Nick and Lisa for a few hours, and even enjoyed some pizza and movies, but I could tell Rachel was about ready to beat my head in. She does not fair well waiting after marginal shots. We called upon Ethan Shetler for some firepower backup and once he showed up, we collected our things. As we were headed out the door a vehicle came to a screeching halt at the end of Nick's driveway, and we see flashlights bobbing around the ditches. We figured someone was popping shots from there truck but it ended up being some po-dunk kids with a beater van, and the rear driver tire completely came off of the van. 30 minutes of Ethan stealing lugs from other tires and they were on their way...

When we finally got out there we found the blood trail and got to the arrow. Good blood on the arrow, but the deer went straight uphill which is never good. When we crested the hill there was a doe standing not 30 yards from us. She was so dumb we started questioning whether or not that was our deer, but Ethan went on ahead and verified that it was indeed just a doe. At this point our blood trail was poor. Ethan quartered on ahead of us while we tried to figure out his path.

"Well looky here folks we have a dead deer!"-Ethan Shetler

Laying in the bottom of the deepest, darkest ravine is a dandy 9pt buck.

 We decided it would be best to get him out of the ravine and in a more suitable area for better pics, and a better gutting area.
Ethan and I dogged him out of there but I thought it was going to kill us both. It was all downhill, but we were humping him over logs, and rock drops and ponded areas before we found the creek. Then we had to get him over that shear edge.
Once we got him in place it was picture time.

We thought it was funny how the men stood around with their celebratory cigars, while the women gutted the deer.

 Rachel's hit in the middle of the middle somehow managed to fine liver, paunch, and a nice star punch right through a lung. Again LUCKY.

 While quartering the buck from the hang post on the deck, we discovered another thing. We knew there was a previous wound on the deer right behind the shoulder opposite of Rachel's entry shot. It looked like someone else had tried their luck at harvesting this buck but had failed to do so. Upon inspection I found small fragments of lead and copper plating. It appeared someone tried the shoot him with a muzzleloader and we could not figure out why it was not a fatal shot. Again, LUCKY. For obvious reasons we decided Lucky was this bucks name and it couldn't have worked better. I was planning to sit in that treestand. I would have shot that buck. It will look much better on the wall with Rachel's name on it.


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