My best Whitetail Buck

[ozark]

My tree stand was perched about 30 feet up near the center of a flat area containing fivesix acres. A pine tree forked into three trunks that made a perfect place to hang the stand and to nail steps leadiing to it. It had been mounted a couple weeks before season. From it I could look down into the thicket covered with christmastree size red cecar and a mixture of briars vines and other underbrush. Here and there were pool table size areas where the ground was clear and grass grew. Back then dogs were permitted to chase the deer and I knew that deer entered this thicketndsometimes eluded the dogs. I climed up early and shortly after daybreak I heard several races in the distance but none came through the thicket. About 8:30 I watch a doe enter, wander around nibbling on twigs and eventually layed down in plain sight. I would peck on the tree stand and she would look in my direction and then just ignore me. This convinced me that I was not disturbing deer in the area. I dring coffee, eat a egg sandwich and enjoyed the warm sun as it cast its warmth on me.and time passed. I heard a few more races in the distance but my area stayed quiet.
About ten:AM I happened to hear or see something that drew my attention to a deers body with its head hidden behind a cedar. Since the doe was still there I assumed it was another doe and didn't get excited. I could see most of the body but nothing of thead tosee better I looked through the rifle scope at the body which was only thirty yards distance. I was calm as I studied the body and thoughtonly that the deer looked big. It was sometime before I noticed its head move. As the head turned I seen about a sexteen insectionof antler that had points on it. This was good enough for me. I moved the crosshairs to the heart/lung area pushed the safety forwared and mashed the tigger. I expected a bangflop but instead got a panic crash through the briars and brush. The rack it carried was something behold. I had never seen one so wide tall and big in this area. As it crashed away it occured to me that perhaps I should chamber another cartridge but i was reluctant because I knew where the first one entered. At about 20 yards it seemed to colapse at the heighth of a jump and crashed to the earth and lay still.
I field dressed it and was able to drag it a short distande to my pickup. Although I am not a horn hunter I have to admit that this deer was something special. Some claimed to have sighted him at times near a air strip about a mile from where it was shot. It was called the Airport Buck. That happened many years ago but sometimes I still hear others mention that the bigest deer taken in this are was that one. BTY Field dressed it weighed nearly 200 pounds at the butcher shop. OZark

[wilmsmeyer]

WHERE'S THE PICTURE??

[dans]

Back in 94 I killed a nice 10 pointer that scored 165&4/8ths. Here's the story. I had hunted all morning on the Indiana opener on my in laws Blackford co. farm. My sons were hunting on other areas of the farm and I had heard both of them shoot so I figured something was on the ground. About 11 o'clock I left my homemade ladder stand which sets on a heavy fence row leading to a point of a large woods and headed toward the barn. When I got there both of my sons had deer down and we got the old ford mowing tractor out and drove around and collected them. While we were standing in the barnyard talking to my brother in law a neighbor stopped and told us he had seen a big deer heading across the south field onto our property. Well we hung those deer and I headed back to my stand about a half mile walk. There was second crop soy beans in the field and as I walked back I kept another fence row between me and the field I was hunting. I eased up the fence row to my stand and the retaining rope I had tied it with broke. Now the stand was too unstable to sit on so I found a big tree nearby and sat on the ground. While I was there my brother in law decided to cut the beans in the adjacent field and he cut most of the afternoon. When he got to the fence between the fields, I glanced over to the field I was in and saw the tips of a rack of antlers sticking up above the thigh high beans at about 90 yards. Soon I could see the whole head as he sneaked a look at the combine. How am I going to kill this buck? I raised my shotgun and looked at him through the 4x scope. He immediately looked right at me! I froze. After a long, long look he lowered his head and the tips of those antlers started moving away from me toward the pond. Its getting late now and time for action. Just as I started to move the combine entered the field and made a pass around the pond. ON the west fence row another hunter got down and ran to the other side of the woods. To the east of me a second hunter walked up to the fence row I was on. (line fence). As the combine closed the distance to the buck I thought he was going to be run up the head but at the last second he jumped up and began to run toward the woods edge I was on. He was angling and when he was as close as he was going to get, 80 yards, I cut down on him. At the shot he turned more toward me and I shot again and he flinched down on the near side. At the 3rd shot he went down about 40 yards from me. I automatically poked more Brenneke slugs in my Ithaca pump and walked over to where he lay. He just kept getting bigger and bigger. All 3 shots had hit the vital heart lung area and he just didn't die easy. I found a slug hole through his neck from front to back that he had sustained that morning and later talked to the guy who shot and lost him.