Gaylord Buck – 2006
The 2006 Summer scouting trips had been successful and exciting, with several good bucks captured on film. Two of our properties had resident bruisers, and one more had a neighbor’s field that consistently housed two more shooters. When the rut was on, these guys would, no doubt, spend some time checking out the doe population on our property. All in all, I expected a good season.
I had only visited our Gaylord property once before, but my job would put me in the neighborhood several days during the next two weeks.With any luck, I would get at least two or three evenings free to devote to time in the woods. According to the reservation system, I would have the place all to myself, so my packing included camo and the Hoyt Spectra. This property is divided into three units with a power line right-of-way dividing two of them. I have always had good luck near clear-cuts for utilities and railroads, so I picked the units where I could approach the clearing from downwind.
Week one didn’t work out until Friday, but that evening was a hit – in the woods by 3PM, and seeing deer by 3:30. At last light, I had seen nine doe and four bucks – but nothing even close to a shooter. Seven of the deer had been within bow range though, so it was an exciting hunt. The deer were circling through the property, so I may have seen some of the doe more than once. On their second round, one of the yearlings came within five feet of me and got a snoot-full of my scent. So the next hour was spent with four mature doe trying to figure me out. They snorted, stomped, bobbed, ran, returned, and generally kept me immobile for the rest of the day – but it was fun.
Week two was a little more open, so I booked Tuesday and Thursday. I got to the property at nearly 6AM Tuesday, and as I put on my boots in the van, noticed a small buck bedded about 50 yards into the hunting unit – too small to shoot, but he looked to have good genetics. He appeared to be a ten pointer with very little mass and average tine length…maybe a twelve inch spread. As I slipped into the unit along the power-line, the little buck watched me, but never rose out of his bed. During the morning I saw five doe and a spike buck, but they were spooky and snorted up a storm before heading onto the neighbor’s farm. I spent the rest of the morning still hunting, to get a better lay of the land, and only saw squirrels and a rabbit. When I got back to the van, the buck was still bedded in the same spot. I didn’t make an effort to be quite and had my camo coveralls off, when the buck stood and headed away from me. His struggle to walk was painful to watch. One leg was obviously broken and his gate seemed to indicate more problems than just a broken leg. He went twenty yards or so and laid back down again. I suited back up and headed out to put him down. It was somewhat of a cat and mouse chase, but he eventually tired and I got within twenty yards of him. When the arrow passed through his chest, he got a burst of energy and ran until he was out of sight – a surprise to say the least. If I waited the traditional time, and then field dressed him and loaded him into the van, I would be late for my meeting, so I decided to come back in the evening to do the retrieval.
As is typical, the meeting went late, and it was dark when I arrived back at the property. I had marked where the blood trail started, so the tracking was not as difficult as I has feared. I followed his trail for about twenty minutes before the trail petered out. So I marked last blood and did some inspecting of the closest likely destinations. The second guess was accurate, and I found him piled up in a blow-down near the border of the unit more than a hundred yards from where he had started. He turned out to be an eleven point typical who looked to be 2 1/2 years old with great genetics for this part of the state. It was a shame that he didn’t get more time to grow-up. During the field dressing, I concluded that he had been hit by a vehicle. The front right leg was broken and the ribs on the right side were also broken, but there didn’t seem to be any holes on the insides of the chest cavity. We would have to see what the butcher recommended about what to process and what to throw away. Getting him to the van and loaded was a piece of cake compared to the past few years, when I downed much more mature deer. He would weigh on the light side of 150 pounds, and I had brought my vinyl deer slide, which made the dragging and loading a breeze. It struck me as I was driving home that this was the biggest buck I have seen north of the rifle line since 2001, so I guess complaining about burning a tag on a small buck would be inappropriate.