The Iron Buck
This buck isn't the biggest I've ever taken. Far from it. But he means a lot to me due to the circumstances of how he was taken.
Three years ago, on the last Saturday of the season, at high noon, I had a really nice buck cruise through while hunting near my house. He was in thick stuff and gave me the skirt. I fired 3 times. I was on him and I even thought he stumbled. But it was thick. I was shocked when he didn't fall and even more shocked when I got down and found no blood.
I circled and nothing. I brought in my brother (I call him the Cobra). Nothing. I even got my sorry azz dog. Nothing.
This was likely going to be the last hunt of my season. To say I was low was an understatement.
My buddy AMB (who's on here but doesn't post a bunch) wasn't going to let it end like that. He's been my friend for a long time and we've had a bunch of fun times through the years.
Season ended on a Friday that year if memory serves. "Take off at lunch and hunt with me Friday afternoon," he said.
My hopes weren't too high. While AMB had killed a bunch of deer on his ground over the years, I'd hunted with him several times and never seen a deer there.
But AMB knew the cards were stacked in my favor. He had a super cool ground blind brushed into a corner of his field to the point it was invisible and he'd seen a buck there. He put me in the blind.
Sure enough, right before dark, the buck ambles out. I had a shooting stick in the blind with me but the buck seemed so close I didn't grab it. Big mistake, one AMB didn't let me forget for a long time.
AMB likes to load a deer up on the last afternoon of season and it's rare for him not to.
His deer didn't come through but he heard me shoot.
He called right after dark.
"Please tell me you got him," he said.
"It don't look too good," I replied. "I got blood but there's not a lot of it and it's kind of dark."
AMB is always prepared. It wasn't long until he arrived with a gigantic tracking light. He's like Batman. I always ask "Where does he get these marvelous toys?"
The blood would be pretty good, then not so good. AMB's faith never wavered. "We're going to find this deer," he said.
We pulled off briefly because AMB had to do a chore for his mom. We grabbed some supper then too.
We went back to keep tracking but lost the trail when the deer hit a bushhogged trail with a horrendous thicket on the other side.
"We'll pick it up here tomorrow," AMB said. "We'll find it."
I wasn't so sure. We'd tracked until about 10:00.
I guess I'm a superstitious person. The first time I really had hope was on the drive to the farm the next day.
"Sweet Home Alabama" came on the radio at the same time a truck with a buck in the back stopped at a stop sign in front of me. I took those as good omens.
The search for the buck was bad. Briars ripped at us. We beat down the overgrown field looking, splitting up.
AMB had a GPS and knew exactly where we'd been. He noticed one spot that hadn't been checked.
"Hey AC," he hollered. "Come here. I want you to look at this. I think it's blood but I can't tell."
I was totally beaten down at this point. I was scratched from ankle to neck. And I thought I'd lost 2 bucks in one week.
"Why the hell does he want me to look at a spot that might be blood" I thought. "He can see twice as good as me and track 3 times better."
The "come here and see if this is blood" was a ruse.
When I finally beat my way to the "spot of blood," AMB lifted my buck's head from the briars, a big old grin on his face.
I would never have shot this buck or found it without my friend.
It turned a horrible ending of the season into a happy one.
The buck had been quartering a little more to me than I thought. The 7-08 punched through but exited a little far back and that's why the blood trail wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. I think the deer might have taken a step as I pulled the trigger.
I nicknamed the deer "The Iron Buck" for the punishment he absorbed and the punishment he dished out to us in tracking him.
I bled him, but he bled us too in the follow-up in the briars.
The ground where most of this happened is a subdivision now, I'm sad to report.
The buck meant a lot to me, pulling victory from defeat with a great friend at my side. The head had been in my freezer since the hunt.
I had to do something to commemorate my "consolation prize" from the 2013-14 season so I finally had a European mount done and got it back today.
I have some skulls hanging up, but Mother Nature did the work on them. This is the only taxidermy skull mount I've ever had done.
