The live action was posted in today's LFTT thread, but I just had to post it here for those of you that don't follow the LFTT threads will see it.
I've been hunting with Emmett the last 3 seasons over in Pickens County. Over the course of the past 3 seasons he has become one of my best friends. He's 70 years old, the same age as my dad. Emmett served 2 tours in Vietnam in the Marines and was in two of the worst battles over there. He fell 35ft about 40 years ago while working construction. About 15 years ago he was diagnosed with throat cancer, which they determined was a result of exposure to Agent Orange while in Vietnam. They had to remove his larynx and he has to breath through a hole in his neck. To talk he has to hold this microphone looking contraption up to his neck. He sounds like a robot when he speaks. He's had one of the roughest lives of any man I know, but he is good as gold and will give you the shirt off of his back. At 70, he gets around better than I do and can climb a tree in a climber faster than a squirrel. I hope the hell I can still do what he's doing when I get to that age.
After his surgery for cancer, he was forced to give up hunting with a compound because his arms are too weak from removing lymph nodes. He had a permit to hunt with a crossbow before they became legal for everyone. We spent a lot of time this summer planting summer plots, putting out cameras and hanging stands. One spot we have is three finger ridges that are between a cutover and a creek bottom. The 13pt I killed last year came down the middle ridge and wound up crossing over to the ridge I was on for me to get a shot. I was on the south ridge. We hung loc-on's on all three ridges back in September. Today Emmett was hunting the middle ridge and I was on the north ridge. We were about 200 yards apart.
On our way in this afternoon we found some encouraging sign. I found one rub so fresh I could literally smell it before I got to it. What I was smelling wasn't freshly scraped wood. It was that musky smell that comes from the forehead gland on a buck. It was pretty well an uneventful evening for me. I saw some turkeys near my stand going in. The only other thing I saw was a groundhog and about 20 squirrels.
At about 6:10 I heard Emmett's crossbow go off followed by the sound of his bolt hitting a deer. A couple of seconds later I heard something that sounded like a dump truck coming through the woods. It was Emmett's deer. It was getting just dark enough that I couldn't tell what it was while it was running. It stopped 30 yards in front me and feel over with it's belly towards me. I figured it was a doe so I hollered at Emmett "You got her!!!" I heard another deer walking so I grabbed my bow.
After a few minutes I didn't see anything so I got on the LFTT thread and posted about Emmett getting one. Right after I hit the submit button Emmett called wanting to know whether it was an 8 or 10pt. About the time I gathered all of my junk and climbed down the tree, Emmett had made it over to the deer. It turned out to be a pretty good 8pt. that weighed about 170#. To say he was excited is an understatement. It's been 7 or 8 years since he had killed a buck during bow season. I believe I was prouder of that buck than he was. He was the same way last year when I killed that 13pt. I absolutely love bowhunting whitetails. The last week of October and the first couple weeks of November are my most favorites times of the year. Since I started hunting with Emmett, it been even more fun.
Here's a couple of trail cam pics I got of the buck:
Here's the happy hunter:
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Don't get much better than that...
