This past January, J.O. found a huge set of antlers from a dead buck on his Cubbedge Hill property, but very near the Webb Center’s oak-lined avenue. We all wondered, and hypothesized, on who had killed that deer.
I asked over at Webb to see if any of their hunters had ever complained that they had lost a HUGE buck anywhere near where the rack was found, and they said no. And I thought we had only lost one big deer, and that was our old member Earl who wounded a monster down in the bay during late Nov. about 750 yards from the rack’s pick up spot. So I thought that possibly that deer had made it up and out of the bay to lay up on the thick pines near the avenue.
It is definitely not out of the question for a deer to make it that far since we have tracked them hundreds of yards before on bad hits – plus you figure it would only take a buck about 20 seconds to travel that far at a good sprint. In addition, Earl searched the bay (and it is open late in the year, so it is easy to see) for a day, and I did for several more later on, so we knew that buck had gone somewhere, but was it up to the avenue???
Well, Raymond goes the whole year without saying anything about his theory on who shot the deer until he came up this week. And he dropped a bombshell! He claims our dear friend Will Castro did…And I am afraid he is RIGHT!
Early on in the rut, Will took a shot at a buck right in that EXACT spot J.O. found the deer from a ladder stand we had in the area. He could only see the deer’s head sticking out making it a tough shot, so when he did not find blood or the deer, he just assumed he missed. He told me about it, but by the time the buck was found, I gave it no thought – again because Will’s was a miss, not a wounded deer lost.
But Raymond had been in the stand right next to him, and he had not forgotten! So he lets us go on believing that we had found Earl’s buck until he had a chance to talk to Will in person to jog his memory. And after getting some more details without saying where he was going with the questioning, Raymond just kicks Will in the nuts by telling him that the avenue buck is his deer!
Now Will is in just a complete frenzy…He has been trying to kill a monster for several years, and when he finally does – he loses it! Then worse than that, when the buck is found, it is not by Will. And we all know that possession is 9/10ths of the law. So now he can hardly speak, much less sleep and eat, knowing that his deer’s rack sits just across the street just waiting to be put on a nice cape and hung in his NEW house.
So we are trying to work out reproduction rights as I type. And I hope we get it soon before Will has a heart attack. And you just have to know how much fun we are all having with Will now – ragging him that this may not be his deer (even though we all know it is). I call it the O.J. buck since he most likely shot it, but probably could not be convicted of it in a court of law!
Also, you just have to know how hard poor Will has hunted for the past few years – only to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under his big feet every time! The first time he I brought him up to hunt, his crappy bushmaster’s firing pin did not go when pulled the trigger on a nice buck. It of course ran right off when he slapped another round in trying to get it to work. (later at the range, that same gun went off when it was chambered! He sold it immediately – with a warning of course to fix it).
His luck then got worse… The next season, he missed two great bucks when his detachable scope rings went bad. The screws literally stripped out of them from the 300 rem mag recoil and this let the zero wander all over the place. He fixed this problem just in time to then gut shoot a nice buck that we searched for with a trail dog to no avail.
Finally Will did manage to shoot a good buck two years ago, so that kind of helped. However he immediately started last season off with a miss on two monsters at the Blount Place when his seat squeaked as he prepared for the shot! Then add a few more monsters that did not allow for a shot when they ran by him chasing does, and you have a series of very SAD hunting stories…
Therefore we are all very happy that Will finally got his monster. He hunts harder than anyone I know (except for myself of course), so he deserves him. Congratulations Will!
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