Posted By: Fullthrottle
Last Hour Buck - 02/16/21 02:37 AM
Sorry for the long wait but here it the story of my eight.
The Last Hour Buck
By: Brandon Burns
Friday afternoon as I got off of work at 3:30 PM and headed home, I came in and talked to the wife and kids for a minute. With no family plans for the evening, I decided to take advantage of the hour of daylight that was left and head to the stand. I hung my bow up and checked my phone. It was 4:15 PM. The stand that I went to is in the middle of a cutover that runs toward the brow of the mountain. The previous owner had made a small half acre field. It is grown up in sage and has several good trails through it that come up from the side of the mountain. There were several white oaks left randomly through the cutover. My Loc-On was about eight feet up in one of them. Any higher and I had no back cover and would by sky lined. I had been hunting a big mature seven point here, but he had ended up breaking part of his main beam. At 4:45 PM, I had three does come down a trail headed off the mountain. As they did, the wind swirled just a bit and spooked the lead doe. She blew twice, and they moved quickly. I thought to myself, “Well, game over.” Not even five minutes later, I could hear a deer making its way around the brow of the mountain. I knew exactly what was happening. The deer was circling down wind of where the does had blown. I saw movement and horns in the back edge of the clearing. Luckily, where he stepped out, my wind was blowing parallel to him. I was surprised to see this eight point come into the clearing. As he stood there surveying the scene, I grew nervous and was shaking. He was a tall racked eight with decent tine length and was definitely a deer that I was going to take if he presented the opportunity. With the wind in his face, he seemed to relax and head up the trail. If he stayed his course, he would pass by me just under twenty steps. I calmed myself, picked a hole, and brought the recurve to full draw. As he stepped into my spot, I let my arrow fly. As he ran fifty or so yards up the hill, I knew something wasn’t right. I could see a lot of arrow sticking out. I must have hit the shoulder. Shooting two hundred forty grains up front, I have never had a problem zipping through deer. The eight takes a short run back to me, stops for a minute, and eases off toward the brow of the mountain with his head down. I checked the hit site and the way he went with only a few specks of blood. The shot was downhill plus my eight foot stand height. I knew the arrow was angled in with at least ten inches of penetration, and there wouldn’t be much blood. I head back to the house to give him time, and I’m playing the evening’s events over and over in my head. I decided to call for a local tracking dog. He told me that it would be lunch the next day before he could come out. That was fine with me with temperatures close to freezing and not being really sure where the arrow had struck the deer exactly. After a sleepless night, my anxiety started to take over. It was 11:30 AM the next day, and I hadn’t heard from the owner of the tracking dog. I decided to take up the track myself. The first hundred yards was fairly easy because I had seen the path that he had taken. The eight takes me on a steep winding trail down the mountain. I have already dropped two hundred feet in elevation finding very little blood. I see pin drops every few feet and guessing that he is staying on the same trail. As I hit mid-level of the mountain a point runs out from the bench and keeps the same elevation for a couple hundred yards. A heavily used trail runs along the edge. The sides of this point are steep for a man but manageable for a deer. At this point I had tracked four hundred yards from the hit site, and my confidence in finding this trophy was fading quickly. The blood had finally played out. With nothing else to go on except for the heavy trail he had been on, I decided to just keep to it until the end. As I eased along and glassed with my binoculars ahead of me and off the sides of this point, I just said a little prayer to God that if this deer is dead to please let me find him so he didn’t die in vain, and if he’s still alive to please let him not be in pain and heal quickly. I took a few more steps as my eyes caught sight of what looked like tines sticking up at the edge of the bluff. I look quickly through the binoculars and to my relief the eight lay at the edge of the point. My heart was pounding, and I thanked God for the answered prayers. As I sat there admiring his rack looking over the valley, I called my wife to let her know that I was okay. I took a few pictures and decided to bring the deer down the mountain instead of the long steep hike back up. I called an uncle to tell him the news and that I needed his assistance. Luckily, there was a good road close to the bottom where he could meet me. I started the descent down carefully to catch our ride back home. Reflecting back on the events that transpired, it seemed like it took place in the blink of an eye. I feel like we take for granted the time that God gives each of us on this Earth. We should take advantage of every spare second that He gives us… even if it’s to catch an hour of last light from a tree stand.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/CBV1wN8.jpg)
The Last Hour Buck
By: Brandon Burns
Friday afternoon as I got off of work at 3:30 PM and headed home, I came in and talked to the wife and kids for a minute. With no family plans for the evening, I decided to take advantage of the hour of daylight that was left and head to the stand. I hung my bow up and checked my phone. It was 4:15 PM. The stand that I went to is in the middle of a cutover that runs toward the brow of the mountain. The previous owner had made a small half acre field. It is grown up in sage and has several good trails through it that come up from the side of the mountain. There were several white oaks left randomly through the cutover. My Loc-On was about eight feet up in one of them. Any higher and I had no back cover and would by sky lined. I had been hunting a big mature seven point here, but he had ended up breaking part of his main beam. At 4:45 PM, I had three does come down a trail headed off the mountain. As they did, the wind swirled just a bit and spooked the lead doe. She blew twice, and they moved quickly. I thought to myself, “Well, game over.” Not even five minutes later, I could hear a deer making its way around the brow of the mountain. I knew exactly what was happening. The deer was circling down wind of where the does had blown. I saw movement and horns in the back edge of the clearing. Luckily, where he stepped out, my wind was blowing parallel to him. I was surprised to see this eight point come into the clearing. As he stood there surveying the scene, I grew nervous and was shaking. He was a tall racked eight with decent tine length and was definitely a deer that I was going to take if he presented the opportunity. With the wind in his face, he seemed to relax and head up the trail. If he stayed his course, he would pass by me just under twenty steps. I calmed myself, picked a hole, and brought the recurve to full draw. As he stepped into my spot, I let my arrow fly. As he ran fifty or so yards up the hill, I knew something wasn’t right. I could see a lot of arrow sticking out. I must have hit the shoulder. Shooting two hundred forty grains up front, I have never had a problem zipping through deer. The eight takes a short run back to me, stops for a minute, and eases off toward the brow of the mountain with his head down. I checked the hit site and the way he went with only a few specks of blood. The shot was downhill plus my eight foot stand height. I knew the arrow was angled in with at least ten inches of penetration, and there wouldn’t be much blood. I head back to the house to give him time, and I’m playing the evening’s events over and over in my head. I decided to call for a local tracking dog. He told me that it would be lunch the next day before he could come out. That was fine with me with temperatures close to freezing and not being really sure where the arrow had struck the deer exactly. After a sleepless night, my anxiety started to take over. It was 11:30 AM the next day, and I hadn’t heard from the owner of the tracking dog. I decided to take up the track myself. The first hundred yards was fairly easy because I had seen the path that he had taken. The eight takes me on a steep winding trail down the mountain. I have already dropped two hundred feet in elevation finding very little blood. I see pin drops every few feet and guessing that he is staying on the same trail. As I hit mid-level of the mountain a point runs out from the bench and keeps the same elevation for a couple hundred yards. A heavily used trail runs along the edge. The sides of this point are steep for a man but manageable for a deer. At this point I had tracked four hundred yards from the hit site, and my confidence in finding this trophy was fading quickly. The blood had finally played out. With nothing else to go on except for the heavy trail he had been on, I decided to just keep to it until the end. As I eased along and glassed with my binoculars ahead of me and off the sides of this point, I just said a little prayer to God that if this deer is dead to please let me find him so he didn’t die in vain, and if he’s still alive to please let him not be in pain and heal quickly. I took a few more steps as my eyes caught sight of what looked like tines sticking up at the edge of the bluff. I look quickly through the binoculars and to my relief the eight lay at the edge of the point. My heart was pounding, and I thanked God for the answered prayers. As I sat there admiring his rack looking over the valley, I called my wife to let her know that I was okay. I took a few pictures and decided to bring the deer down the mountain instead of the long steep hike back up. I called an uncle to tell him the news and that I needed his assistance. Luckily, there was a good road close to the bottom where he could meet me. I started the descent down carefully to catch our ride back home. Reflecting back on the events that transpired, it seemed like it took place in the blink of an eye. I feel like we take for granted the time that God gives each of us on this Earth. We should take advantage of every spare second that He gives us… even if it’s to catch an hour of last light from a tree stand.
