Lucky In Kentucky

Every so often, you experience a hunting trip where every thing just seems to go your way. The weather is perfect, no wind or rain, your feet never get cold while sitting in your stand, the greasy, trans fatty meals you consume in camp don’t give you gas or the runs, you sleep like a baby at night although you bunk in a drafty old shack with a room full of chronic snorers, and of course most importantly, you just happen to pick the right spots when it comes to running into big deer.

Now personally I’ve never had too many of those kind of hunting experiences, in fact I’d never had one. It seemed all too often I was the one witnessing those kinds of hunts happen to other members of my hunting party. That was until November 9, 2008, the opening day of rifle season in Critenton County, Kentucky. On that particular day it was as if the moon and stars in heavens aligned just for perfectly for me and the celestial hunting gods, high in the heavens nodded their approval in my direction. It was as if I had a golden horseshoe surgically implanted up my rear-end. I could do no wrong and the world just seemed to be in perfect sync. Best. Hunting. Trip. Ever. (Insert voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpson’s here.)

Opening Day began in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Dad, Joe, and myself awoke around 4 AM at the Country Inn just off Interstate 24. Bleary-eyed and half-asleep we donned our hunting attire and walked out into the cold darkness of a Kentucky morning resembling a team of military snipers. We stuffed our fanny packs with bologna sandwiches, Nab crackers, and Little Debbie’s, a hunting lunch prerequisite. Then after forcing down a Honey Bun and Mountain Dew, we loaded our gear and rifles into the back of Dad’s Chevy and headed for the deer woods, located on the outskirts of the sleepy rural town of Marion.

It was about twenty miles to the hunting property from the hotel and on the way we listened to static AM Talk Radio yammer on about the recent Presidential election. Normally during deer season, the three of us would stay at the old; dilapidated farmhouse situated on the hunting property, which serves as our base camp, but on this particular weekend the house was full of several college friends of the landowner. They’re a particularly rowdy bunch that doesn’t particularly care for the members of our hunting party, so the three of us opted to stay at a hotel until they left on Sunday night.

We pulled into the property a good hour before sunrise. Dad turned of the road and into the one of the many pastures that dot the property and killed the truck’s engine. Dad’s Polaris Ranger, which serves as our main form of transportation of the 1500 acres of hunting land was waiting for us at the edge of the field. We had neglected to cover it the day before with a tarp and we discovered it was now blanketed in a thick coating of frost. We scraped the ice from the windshield and wiped the cold condensation from the Ranger’s seat. Dad climbed behind the wheel and Joe and I slid in next to him, clutching our rifles between our legs and quickly headed out to our stands. The first glow of daylight was just beginning the to creep over the eastern horizon as we made our way the vast expanse of the frozen pastures, making frequent stops in order to pass through a series of cattle gates. Every couple of yards, just beyond the glow of the Rangers headlights, loomed the dark and placid shapes of cattle. Our hands and fingers quickly grew numb in the morning air.

After about ten minutes of traversing the fields, we reached the spot where I was going to hunt for the morning. With the engine still running, I unloaded my climber from the back of the Ranger and headed towards the edge of the woods. In typical hunting tradition, Dad and Joe both wished me luck as I headed for my stand. After crossing over the barbed wire fence that marked the edge of the tree line, I turned and watched the lights of the Ranger disappear over the hill.

Alone in the darkness with my climber strapped to my back and my Ruger No. 1 in my hands, I maneuvered as stealthily as I could through the forest. I opted not to use my flashlight, since I had hunted this area before and I had a pretty good lay of the landscape and plus one never knows if a monster Booner is watching you in the darkness.

About a hundred and fifty yards inside the tree line, I reached the spot I intended to set up. I quickly set to work erecting my climbing stand. Personally I always hate putting a climber on a tree first thing in the morning-the process is aggravating and slow going in the dark and I tend to make enough noise to wake the dead. I was during this process I finally broke down and switched on my mini-mag light in order to speed along the process. About midway through, as I was noisily adjusting the chains around the trunk of the tree and cursing under my breath, I suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the darkness. I immediately froze, and almost as a precursor to the uncanny luck I would experience over the course of the next few days, a small doe walked to with ten feet of me, completely ignoring the fact I was cursing like a Marine drill sergeant and had a flashlight protruding from my mouth. The doe nonchalantly walked right on by and disappeared down the hill.

Eventually, the climber decided to cooperate and my rifle and I were soon perched comfortably high above the forest floor, awaiting first light. This is my favorite time of the hunt- sitting motionless in the inky, silent blackness just before dawn. It’s as if you are the only creature alert and awake on the earth and day is filled with endless possibilities. My mind races with countless hunting scenarios, most of them involving me placing a new world record in the sights of my Nikon scope.

As the sun slowly began to rise, the woods around me stared to awaken. I listened to chirp of birds, and the skittering of squirrels descending down tree trunks from their nightly nests. My surroundings also began to revel themselves to me in the morning light. My stand was situated on a small rise overlooking a large, open hollow, dotted with towering oaks and maples. Directly in front of me I could make out the edge of the pasture, where I could hear the low bellowing of cattle grazing. To my left, were step-wooded ridges that lead to the edge of a power line. It was an ideal spot to catch deer crossing from the field to the poer line cut. George W. would have said on this particular morning I was using good “strategery.”

About twenty minutes after daylight, I heard my second deer of the morning approach my vicinity. It came in from the ridge directly behind me, a small forked horn buck who was much too small to warrant shooting. Normally deer walking out in the open are somewhat cautious, especially bucks, but not this guy, he walked straight up to my stand like he didn’t have a care in the world. He even stopped directly under my stand and sniffed my gun rope, which didn’t phase him one little bit. He simple ambled around the clearing in front of me occasionally putting his nose to the ground. This was a sure sign that the Rut was about to get under way. And nothing gets a hunters blood pumping more than The Rut.
After a while, Mr. Forked Horn meandered out of sight up the hollow to my right. But ten minutes later a small doe walked across the same ridge to my rear and began grazing in a cluster of trees about seventy yards to my right. After a while a second doe, walked into range, but this one came in from in from of me. She eventually caught sigh to f the first doe, and quickly scampered up the ridge to join her. I didn’t pay her much attention, she was a small doe, probably a yearly, but what little did I know what was hot on her trail.

I watched the does graze together for what seemed like fifteen minutes or so but I soon grew tired of them and my mind began to wander, which is something I tend to do in the deer woods when there’s not much action.

The red Angus bulls in the distant pasture were beginning to talk to one another.

Moo. Moooooo. Mooooooo.

My mind drifted from place to place- from projects at work to the new James Bond movie that was coming out in a couple of weeks. The cows were still making a lot of commotion just beyond the tree line.

Mooooo. Mooooooo. Mooooo.

My A.D.D had by now kicked in and completely taken my mind off hunting and soon I was off in my own little world. I began mentally ranking all the actors to ever portray James Bond in order from favorite to least favorite. After some serious consideration I decided that the new guy, Daniel Craig, is the best James Bond ever, edging out Sir Sean Connery by a narrow margin. Even though he’s only played Bond in one movie, Craig's performance in Casino Royale was killer.

Grunt. Grunnttt. Gruuunt.

Roger Moore came in third behind Connery. Timothy Dalton, fourth with Brosnan and that other guy who played 007 in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service rounding out the mix. Brosnan, I was convinced had the perfect look for Bond but he played the character as too big of a wuss.

Gruuuuuntt. Gruuuunt. Gruuuuuuuuuunt.

"Hey wait a minute," I thought to myself. "That’s not a cow. That’s a deer!" Suddenly all of my senses were on high alert. Those grunts were the unmistakable sounds of a buck chasing a doe. I readied my rifle and began scanning the trees. It didn’t take long before I located the source of the grunts.

The buck came down the ridge in front of me about a hundred yards a way. I could see his rack gleaming in the morning sun and I knew immediately he was a shooter. As he descended the ridge, I flipped the safety off my Ruger and got into shooting position. I knew he was trailing the second doe and once he got to the bottom of the hill he would continue up the ridge to my left, where I ‘d get a clean shot. I caught glimpses of him through the trees as he continued his downward march, but I lost sight of him once he reached the bottom. He had waked into an old, dry creek bed about eighty yards away, which was hidden from my vantage point by a huge pile of brush. I held my scope on the left side of the brush pile. As soon as he stepped out from behind the brush, I was ready to shoot.

But nothing happened.

The buck simply disappeared. I held the cross hairs of my Nikon scope right on the edge of the brush pile for what seemed like an eternity. Seconds turned into minutes, but still the buck had not emerged from the brush. I began to panic. Had I someone let this buck slip away form me? Had he followed the creek bed in the opposite direction away from the does? I took my eyes of the brush pile and scanned the tree to my right.

But just as I turned my head the buck exploded from the creek bed. He was running in a full sprint up the hill towards the does. I knew I only had a split second to make a shot, or the buck would be over the ridge and out of sight.

I placed my sights behind his left shoulder and fired. The 7 mag boomed in the still morning air. The buck stumbled and nosed dived into the forest floor. But in an instant he was back on his feet. I hadn't lead him enough and the shot had hit him too far back to put him down permanently. He was more than likely gut shot, but it had slowed him down and bought me some time. I reloaded my No. 1 as quickly as humanly possible. By the time I had a second cartridge in the gun, the buck was running again up the hill. I didn't have a clean shot; all that was visible was his back. That was all I would need.

My second shot, broke his back and the deer went down for good.

I had the post-shot shakes pretty bad, which is something every hunter can relate to. I knew I had just killed to biggest buck of my life. After I calmed my nerves, I climbed out of my stand. Once I hit the ground, I chambered a fresh cartridge, just in case, and walked to the other side of the clearing where the buck had fallen.

He lay there in a heap and as I knelt down to inspect him, I heard a loud SNORT a few yards up the hill. The two does were still standing there, stomping the ground and blowing at me. Apparently they were pretty peeved at me for shooting their Baby Daddy. I ignored them and rolled the buck over to inspect his rack. He was a beautiful wide-racked eight pointer with perfectly symmetrical tines. He was far from a Booner, but undoubtedly the finest buck I’d ever bagged.

I took off my hunting coat, unzipped my fanny pack and dug out a pair of surgical gloves that I carry for the messy job of field dressing. Now the work begins, I thought. But instead of pulling out my Case knife and slitting open the deer’s belly, I first flipped open my cell phone and powered it up. It was 7:45 AM and I knew Ridge would be up by now eating breakfast at grandma’s house; I needed to inform my little Buddy that Daddy had just killed a big ‘un.

Little did I know, that in just a few short hours, an even bigger buck would cross my path.

To be continued…