Pat's 1987 Whitetail Trophy Deer

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Published on Monday, 24 October 2011 21:56

Written by Super User

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It was October 17th I had traveled to my alma mater, RIT (Rochester NY) to visit my girlfriend and wedge in some hunting. I had hunted there my previous 4 years and had a super spot. I new I was going to have to leave my stand a little early to ensure I could make the dinner date I had reluctantly agreed to earlier. So on my way out I heard what sounded like some one rattling horns at about 50 yards to my right. I assumed it was one of the 2 guys I had met earlier. As I stood there trying to decide what I was going to do a giant non-typical buck broke from cover and ran across the clearing directly in front of me. He was quickly followed by a doe. They passed at about 25 yards and there were a couple of small trees in my way. I heard what sounded like another buck grunting and coming towards the same opening so I quickly adjusted my stance to give me the best possible opening. I drew my bow and stood at the ready anticipating what should be an easy shot between 20 and 25 yards.  As the deer emerged it was clear that the two bucks been fighting this buck was also huge and looking to find where the other buck and doe had gone. He slowly moved across the clearing and the tall grass obscured his vitals and I began to worry I wasn't going to get a shot. He finally came to a stop where the grass had been trampled down. Unfortunately there was a small sapling between me and the deer at about 7 yards. The buck stood framed perfectly within a V opening of the saplings limbs. I made the decision that the opening was acceptable and as the pin settled behind the shoulder I relaxed my fingers and a loud crack was heard.

After my body quit shaking and the realization set in that my evening plans were about to change dramatically. After 20 min of searching for blood I found none. I headed back to the truck for a flashlight. I bumped into the other guys hunting the area and they agreed to help me look. After about 45 min they informed me that they didn't believe I had hit the deer and they left. I was certain that I had hit the deer but I was feeling rather dejected due to the lack of blood trail. I continued to search for another hour and never found a spec of blood. I got a sniff of something and it reminded me that Jamie Bobnick had once told me use your nose. Yes the human sense of smell is pretty pathetic but deer do stink. Especially big ole big rack buck deer! A quick check of the wind got me pointed in the right direction. A couple of scans with the flashlight highlighted a small patch of white hidden deep in a thicket. As I scratched an clawed my way in it became clear this was my deer. Oh what a deer, it was HUGE!.

I knew I was going to have problems getting the deer out of the woods when I had trouble just rolling it over to gut it out. Imagine this conversation: "Honey I know I'm late, I know we're supposed to be going out to dinner, I know we have limited time together, yes I understand all that, now can you please come help me drag this huge deer out of the woods. Please I can't do it alone". Well, it took a bit of convincing but she finally agreed to help me out.  Even with her help we had to use a ramp to push the deer into the back of the truck. 232lbs of buck scored 143-2.