The Backstory
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been a hunter. Specifically, a duck hunter. As I went through high school and college I started dabbling in deer hunting. Over time I managed to shoot a few bucks and does while hunting feeders at different leases.
After I got the taste for deer hunting, my attention turned to my grandparent’s ranch in Bastrop County. The ranch is roughly 90% pasture land. It’s not a deer lease and sightings were few and far between. I’ve always liked to do things my way, which meant hunting trails in the only small creek bottom at the ranch. I didn’t want to hunt a feeder. I would sit hunt after hunt, year after year, and maybe see an occasional doe.
It didn’t take long to realize I needed to use game cameras to try to track deer movement since they were periodically using the creek bottom. Soon after setting up cameras, the buck sightings slowly started increasing. But they were not legal to shoot, as Bastrop County has antler restrictions.
Getting to this buck…
I knew he existed, as I jumped him once before during the day, but the 9pt was a ghost in the night for a long time.
After being nothing but a night time specter, a different camera finally captured a photo of him in the daylight. The season was in mid-rut and I figured I’d have a shot to see him during the day. Just didn’t know it would happen so quickly…
Armed with a shotgun and a slug, I perched myself on the edge of the creek bottom. I was simply sitting in front of a bunch of brush I piled, so I wouldn’t be silhouetted. Boom, here comes a doe not 5 yards in front of me. My nerves began to get out of control knowing that he could be on her trail…
Lessons Learned
I thought I was prepared, but damn, I was not. I was not ready mentally, nor did I have the experience to fall back on and guide me. I couldn’t control my buck fever. Heavy breathing, shaking, rushing, and a complete lack of stealth. Nothing was right beside the fact that I knew where to be and it played out perfectly.
This hunt changed me as a hunter. It taught me so much and drove me to learn as much as possible in order to become a wise hunter. Every hunt I learn something new or at least try to. Killing a whitetail buck up close and personal is hard, and this was my story of how NOT to shoot a buck.
