Dawn rose on November 21, 2015 and I found myself at my club in Lowndes county, sitting watching a crossing between two pine plantations. Nothing in particular attracted me to the area other than it just looked like a place a deer would hang out. It was also fairly close to where Janet was going to be so that was the main factor in choosing this particular set up.

I got settled in a little after 6 and within 10 minutes I could hear some turkeys yelping. A little while later I heard them fly down. It wasn't too long until I saw them start to ease into the road I was watching. There was bearded hen and all her young ones from this year's hatch. There was a mixture of jakes with stubs for beards and hens. I watched them for a long time as they chased each other around and were obviously establishing a pecking order. Two jakes were bowed up on each other sizing each other up like boxers in a ring. It was an awesome sight! They eased up to me and I was able to get some video of them and also the hen doing a kee kee run to get all her brood back together. They got to within 15 yards of me. Unfortunately, it won't load up on the site.

While I was filming the turkeys, I was so focused on the them I didn't see a deer stepping out about 100 yards away. I looked up and saw it so I immediately stopped filming and got my gun up and saw it was a doe. She stepped out, then a yearling, then another yearling followed by another doe. The last doe kept looking back from where she came so I started to get excited!

The next deer was a small buck with a spike on one side and a 3 point rack on the other. He hung around for a few minutes and I was hoping he wasn't alone. He wasn't. The next deer was a larger buck! Much larger! I was trying to judge his spread because I didn't want to shoot one too small but when he turned and looked the other way, I could see he was definitely outside the ears. I settled the Leupold on this shoulder and at 7:18, I touched the trigger! Through the scope, I watched him do the old "bucking bronco" kick and in a blink of an eye, he dove for the timber across the road! Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the turkeys flush like a covey of quail!

Oh man was I pumped!! I got to shaking more than Keith Richards going through withdrawals! I had to gather myself to keep from hyperventilating! I finally calmed down enough to climb down and went to find him. When I got to the place where he was standing, I could see where he dug in deep trying to get traction to run. I looked for blood and found nothing. Not one drop. Man, I just knew I hit him though. I started second guessing myself but finally convinced myself that this deer had to be dead within 50 yards. I started walking down the pine row where he jumped in the woods. I was looking hard for blood and for rack, for a white belly, for a brown body, for anything!!

Finally about 40 yards I looked over in the next row and saw a rack! Heck yeah!!!!! The first thing I thought was "Ok, he's definitely gonna make the club requirements on body size alone!" He looked massive lying there in the pines. I gave the old owl hoot and then thanked the Lord for such a beautiful experience! Here's how I found him:

Well I was all pumped up and went to get the Ranger! I got back to him and realized right quick this was gonna be more than I could do myself. But, not one for giving up, I tried for about an hour to lift this dude up on the bed of the Ranger. It wasn't happening! I could get his head up to the edge but that was it. All I had was a strap so I tried every way I could but there was no way for me to lift him this high (y'all see where this is headed? )


So, I thought back to a thread that was about 50 pages long about 2 weeks ago and started laughing out loud. Yep, I'm gonna have a co-pilot in the floorboard! It took me about 15 more minutes to pull his body through to the other side but finally I got him in! I'm sure some of y'all could have just thrown him in the bed all by yourself. If so, good for you! This 49 year old body ain't what it used to be!

It was hell driving back to camp trying to work the gas and brake pedals around his head and rack but we finally made it! It ain't a Can Am pic but I had to snap one for y'all!

We finally made it back to camp after some difficulty but heck, every hunt has a story right?!

He was a fat 7 point with a 17 inch spread. We put him on the scales and I was thinking he was gonna be around 190 or so. He ended up weighing 210 lbs! He's the heaviest buck I've ever killed!


Overall, I could not have had a prettier morning! I got to see a sunrise on an another Alabama opening day, I got to watch turkeys for 45 minutes, and to top it off, I was able to kill the biggest body deer of my career!

Dr. B