As most of our lowcountry hunters know, the last few weeks have been unbelievably hot. And the high temperatures along with the ton of acorns in the woods has kept our rut from really cranking up since the bucks have been hiding in the shade while snacking on the oak droppings instead of coming to corn or food plots. However last Sunday a nice cold front finally rolled in, and that got the bucks and does up and moving pretty good.

And during this cool weather, I was fortunate enough to have a few days off to take our boys hunting a few times as well as hunt by myself too. Well, the boys and I drew first blood when we took a nice, big doe when five of them came out to feed. Then just a few days later, I had a chance at a monster…

It was pretty late, and I was just about to get out of my stand when I saw a dark shape cross the road in front of me. I jerked the gun up and spotted a big doe walking with another doe and two yearlings behind her about 100 yards away. None of them stopped to feed on the corn, but instead just kept going. So I kept the gun up and ready to see if anything was behind them, and sure enough a big deer stepped in the road after them. I could tell it was a giant deer with a big rack, I just couldn’t tell how many points that it had.

That is when I started to regret not taking a few shots before hunting to check where my  “new” bullets were hitting -  I had ran out of my Winchester Supreme FailSafes  that I have shot for years, so I had just grabbed a couple of old powerpoints from my hunting stuff to get by the night, thinking that I either wouldn’t see anything I wanted to shoot or if I did, it would be close enough not to matter! However,  the deer was just too big to let go, so I figured that the heavier powerpoints would hit lower, aimed high and let a round go down range.

After the muzzle blast in the dark, everything went black. I waited a second, then when I didn’t hear anything running through the woods, I picked the gun back up and looked down the scope to where the deer had been. Sure enough, he was still standing there! I couldn’t believe it, my dead deer was still just as alive as he could be. So I quickly and somewhat quitely opened the bolt on my old Model 70 Winchester 30-06 and chambered the only other round I had with me. I then put the crosshairs back on the deer, this time right at the top of his back, and let my second shot go…

At the blast, I could hear the deer running through the woods. Then a crash… I couldn’t believe it. I had got him! So I ran back to my truck, grabbed my flashlight and went to where he had been. Sure enough, blood was in the mud in the road. So I just took a few steps back into the pines and shined my light right on to him. That is when I realized that I had shot the biggest buck I had seen on my trailcam since I started setting up the little spot that I had been given permission to hunt… A beautiful mainframe 8 point with 4 inch long kickers – two off of his G2s and two off of his giant bases.

I then checked to see where my shot had hit, and found that it had just barely caught the bottom of his heart. After saying a quick prayer, I called Amy to let her know that I had gotten the big one and to keep the boys up until I could get home to show them. They were so proud of me for killing a giant buck; however there were also pretty peeved that they had not been allowed to go with me. But fortunately they forgave me when I promised to take them the next time

I have lots more stories to tell about this season, so I will try to get back to writing and share them with everyone. I also hope that everyone is having a great season too.

Jeff

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