A Weekend To Remember

Due to fatherhood responsibilities at home and the fact the Danielle and I where feeling the affects of the economic recession, I decided not to participate in the 2009 Kentucky Deer Season. And that decision, unfortunately, is probably going to haunt me for some time, since some really big whitetails were harvested off of our property that year. The following story was written by my younger brother Joe Bryson, which chronicles his and Dad’s adventures that season in the Deer Woods.)

A Weekend To Remember By Joe Bryson

(November 14-15, 2009)

Dad and I left about 4:00 A.M. On Friday morning to come check out our new lease in Western Kentucky, and hopefully get in a few days of hunting. We have a brand new 350-acre lease in Livingston, County Kentucky. After a long seven-hour drive we met up with the landowner's caretaker, a friendly chain-smoking fellow named Keith about 11:00. We followed him down the road about two miles where he showed us the property along with a few maps of the area. We were taking a risk when we signed the deal to lease the land, because we had not really looked the place over at all. We knew however, that there were big deer in the area. The property is adjacent to the track of land that our cousin Ray currently is leasing from another local farmer. Ray has told us numerous stories about monster bucks that live in this part of the county.

Hunting this part of the country is nothing new to us as we have been leasing land in Western Kentucky for several years now. Its a shame we have to go this far to hunt, but all the local idiots back in Mills River have no concept of quality deer management. As the old saying back home goes “If its brown, its down.” Dad and had brought several bags of shell corn to put out in few spots we thought looked pretty good. We have discovered it doesn't take deer long in Kentucky to find an easy meal in the woods. After emptying our sacks we drove over to where we were going to camp for the night. We were going to share camp with Ray tonight, as his property is just a stone's throw away from ours. Dad and I would share camp that night with Ray, Matt, Serena (Matt's daughter), Chris and Randy Ballenger, Jr. and Wyatt. Everyone slept in their campers that night except for dad and I. We slept on a mattress in the back of dad's covered pickup. This is nothing knew, as Rick and I had done this many times over the years. After a restless night of listening to coyotes and dreaming of big bucks, we were up again at 5:00 AM, ready to hit the woods.

We had a feeling it was going to a good day when a huge buck crossed the road on our short drive to our stands. Dad decided he was going to sit on a little wooded point that stuck out on the corner of the lower pasture. It was looking out over the pasture and a creek bed that was covered in tracks. Dad had put out some corn about 50 yards behind him on the ridge. I was just a short distance around the bend on the creek flat up on a hard wood ridge. About 8:30 I saw a doe come down the ridge in front of me. She crossed the creek and milled around for about five minutes before feeding off up the ridge where she came from. About 9:45 a small five point came in from my left and ate some corn for a few minutes before heading up the hill where the doe came from. Saw only a few does and a fawn the rest of the morning. At 11:00 I began climbing down to go meet dad, who I as pretty sure had shot about 30 minutes earlier. As I was getting down I saw dad coming down the hill. He told me that he had shot a nice 8pt, and we needed to get him loaded up before it got too warm. On the way to the buck he told me how at about 7:30 a nice white-horned 8-point had walked right under his stand and looked at him. Deciding to hold off for something bigger, he had let him walk. As the young buck ran up the ridge he said he saw another nice buck feeding in the corn pile. Not knowing what else he would see, he decided to put some meat in the freezer and dropped the buck in his tracks. This put a little smile on my face as this was the first deer he had taken with the new 7mm Rick and I had bought for him on his birthday.

We got his buck loaded in the truck and drove back to camp where we strung him up on an old wood shed. We decided dad would stay there and quarter the buck while I went back out to hopefully catch a rutting buck cruising for does in the middle of the day. Dad dropped me off at the top field where I was going to explore some new woods down on the east side of the property. I walked the edge of the field for about ¼ of mile when I spotted and old metal ladder stand in a small clearing just across the creek. I remember Keith saying we could hunt that stand if we found it. I decided to climb up and sit out the rest of the afternoon. What an awesome spot! Brier thickets and a small draw around the bend of the creek surrounded the clearing. It looked like a real honey hole to see an old buck cruising for does.

About 1:15, I decided to eat my lunch while listening to the sounds of the Kentucky deer woods. About 1:30 as I was chowing down on a Little Debbie (Zebra cakes are my personal favorite), I looked to my right and saw a huge yellow tine moving through the thicket. I tried to get a look at him with my binoculars, but he vanished as quickly as he appeared. After mumbling a few choice words under my breath, I sat there for the next two hours seeing and hearing absolutely noting. The great thing about the deer woods is that one's luck can turn at the blink of an eye. At 3:45 I noticed movement across the creek. I got my Wind River binos up and saw a huge rack moving through the brush. I deduced quickly this was a “shooter.” As my heart started pounding through my jacket I steadily prepared for a shot. The gun I was carrying today is my Marlin Guide Gun chambered in 45-70. I bought his gun two years ago in Chatsworth, GA, but had yet to kill anything with it. Rick and dad jokingly have told me that it was a great gun...........if I was hunting Grizzlies in the Yukon!

The buck was heading directly at me when he dropped down into a gully. My heart sank as he seemingly disappeared. I scanned the brush frantically with my Nikon scope and finally saw him about 30 yards to my left in a brier thicket. Knowing the power of this gun (405 grains), I knew shooting into the brush would not be a problem. When my cross hairs found his shoulder, I fired! The old boy only took a few steps and I heard him crash. I literally jumped out of my stand and made my through the honeysuckle and biers where I found him laying across a log. He was a big long tined 8-point! One of my biggest bucks ever. After a few pictures, I did the dirty work of gutting him and proceeded to make the one-mile walk to get dad to help drag him out. We drove the truck down to within about 75 yards of the creek where we loaded the big 200 lb+ buck up and headed back to camp. What a good day. Dad and I had both killed nice deer and had shared some great time together.

DAD'S MONSTER

Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009

Having an exhausting day, we decided to drive a few miles down the road to the interstate and stay in the hotel. After a long day of dragging and skinning deer, we wanted to treat ourselves to a hot shower and meal. We agreed that we would hunt in the morning until about 11:00 with the agreement to shoot nothing but a “monster.” Having plenty of meat for the freezer there was really no reason to hunt except for the fact that we had drove seven hours for a one-day hunt AND we knew what possibly could walk through the woods in this part of Kentucky at any moment.

We parked the truck at the top field the next morning about 6:00. I was going to hunt the pasture stand with Dad's 7mm and he was going back to the creek stand where I took my buck yesterday afternoon. I told dad to take the Marlin because of how thick it was where he was going. The morning was very slow. I saw nothing, except some cows passing by about 7:30. It was unusually warm this morning. The deer just were not moving. About 7:45 I heard one shot followed by another in the direction of where dad was sitting. About a half hour later I saw dad's old red shirt coming down the hill. I remember praying to myself that I hope dad had killed a good buck. It has been a long time since he had killed a real trophy. As he got closer I could see he was smiling. “Did you get 'em”, I hollered. Dad put both hands over his head to indicate he had indeed shot a “monster.” I was bursting with excitement inside for dad. He does so much for Rick and me, and I was literally overjoyed to hear the good news. He walked to the base of my tree and simply said, “He's a nice one.” As we took the long walk over the ridge, across the field, and down to the creek I listened to dad tell the story. These stories never get old. Even now at 32 years of age, I love to hear dad tell his stories. As we crossed the creek I saw, lying not 30 yards from where my buck fell, the biggest deer I have ever seen. It honestly looked like a horse with antlers! It was dad's buck of a lifetime. What a great memory-two big deer from the same tree, using the same gun.

(Dad's huge 8 pt. buck would later score 146 inches Boone and Crockett)