I'm going to throw in a turkey hunting story in here even though this is the deer forum. (Actually a two parter as the whole story is just to good not to share).

One of my best friends in the world and I used to hunt in the same hunting club back in the early 2000's. He had a little ornery teenage son named Nick who used to love to aggravate us and play pranks. Nick would deer hunt religiously but in the spring he was always too busy to turkey hunt with us much. Well it just so happened that Nick got to join us one weekend. His dad really wanted him to kill a turkey so he asked me to take him which I was happy to do. I knew of a couple of birds that had not been messed with but had no clue where they would be roosted. So Nick and I slip in there quietly the next morning and sit down on a ridge overlooking a big creek bottom. About daylight it sounded like a turkey farm down on that creek and we were right above them. I knew they weren't coming up that big ridge we were on and told Nick we would have to get down there with them so we carefully and quietly slipped down the road that led down to the creek. By the time we got down to where the road met the creek there was a wall of brush and privet that we just could not get through and I look up the creek and there is a line of red headed gobblers walking right to us. I immediately started assessing the situation but there was no way to shoot through that mess. The birds were closing fast down the creek and in desperation I got down low and lo and behold there was a hole through that 15 yard wide brush that some animal had made him a tunnel through. I grabbed Nick by the collar and pulled him down as the first red head passed through that hole. I told him "The next red head you see walk through that opening, you kill". Two gray headed hens went by and all of a sudden a red head appeared. Boooooooooooooooom and I hear the wings go to flapping. The kid had killed his first gobbler, and I have never heard so much yelling and celebration as he waded through that sea of brush to get to his bird.

Some of you may remember Nick.

K9 Officer Nick O'Rear (End of Watch 2/5/2020)




Fast forward to 2021 (a little over a year after his death). Nicks dad called me one day in late March of 2021 to shoot the bull. I asked him was he hearing any turkeys and he shared with me how he had really been struggling since his son's death and he just had not been able to bring himself to go hunt since Nick had gotten a little older and accompanied him a lot. He just said it was too hard to go alone. I told him to pack a bag that he was going with me and he wouldn't be alone and after a little coaxing I got him to agree. We drove down to a little piece of property I've got access to in Barbour Co and I had been getting some pictures of a couple of dumb 2 year olds which I figured was just the medicine he needed. Fate had other plans and it was raining at daylight. We cooked some breakfast and waited out the rain which was scheduled to end around 10 am. At 11 am we got on our camo and headed to my spot to see if we could get one of those 2 year olds to play. We hiked up the road and the closer I got to where I wanted us to be I could see the sun popping out from behind the clouds which were quickly clearing out. I got to my first spot and we just sat down up against a big oak and started talking about the good ol days and Nick and how much he was missed. I guess 30-45 min went by and I decided to take a call out for the first time and let her rip. I started off with some light yelping and then progressed into some pretty aggressive cutting. Immediately I was cut off by a gobble down the ridge. I set my buddy up and got behind him but close enough to see the action. A few minutes goes by without hearing anything and then I see a red and white head bobbing through the hardwoods directly in front of us. It slipped up into the edge of the greened up cutover and proceeded to put on a show like I have never seen. He strutted all the way to us with the sun shimmering off of his feathers which almost made him glow bronze. He got to about 25 yards and I whispered to Dan, "Kill him" and I heard his Browning shotgun go off. The turkey crumbled upon impact and I got up and walked over to Dan who was just sitting there in disbelief..... it was the first time he had been in the woods since his son was killed and we had one down within an hour. We walked over to the downed bird and the first thing I noticed was how huge it was. He picks it up and I can clearly see as it's coming off of the ground that it had multiple beards. I had him put it down and we counted 3 long beards of 9 - 10 inches each. Holy cow I said...... I didn't even know this bird existed because I've never gotten a picture of him. He looked me dead in my eye and said "Nick sent him to us" and then he pulled a little green urn out of his jacket pocket and said "He's been here with us the entire time". I'm not going to lie...... tears were shed. We finally composed ourselves and got some great pics to remember it by. He even let Nick get in on the pictures.

That is an incredible story.

Thank you for sharing.

Dang BC, you got my allergies fired up this morning. Thanks for sharing.

Opening week of Bow Season a few years back, a buddy of mine knocked down a buck one evening and needed some help tracking. We gave the buck a few hours and naturally grabbed excess refreshments before a few of us headed out to the woods to find his buck. Track was fairly easy to pick up and deer seemed to be hit pretty good. Easing along a long steep ridge, I could see eyes in the distance. As we eased closer we could tell that the deer was wounded and having a hard time getting up. As Murphy's Law would have it, not one person had a method to finish off the deer. The buddy, along with the guy that shot the buck made a dash back to their truck to get something to take care and finish off the buck while we hung out. So while sitting there with my buddy, watching this buck via flashlight, I had a grand idea. I told my buddy that the plan was for him to go up higher on the ridge and keep the flashlight in the deer's eyes and that I would sneak up from below and stab him with my knife. There was a lot of Miller Lite involved in this though process. So my buddy starts to work his way up and around this buck while trying to keep the lights in it's eyes while I attempt my best John Rambo. As I start crawling/sneaking up from below the buck starts freaking out and trying to get up. Obviously the attempt to "blind" the deer with the flashlight was not working. Finally getting into a position, I made my move. First strike I got him right behind the shoulder and he immediately started to donkey kicked the crap out of me dead in my ribs. Not thinking straight, I grabbed his leg for dear life and stuck him again and just held on until he was expired. My buddy was freaking out the whole time and it didn't settle with me how dumb I was until the adrenaline went away. Definitely a night to remember.

I posted this in January of 2015, at the time he was my biggest buck and he was first of a run of 12 bucks in Alabama I have shot and mounted in the past 8 years.


I have hunted deer for about 15 years, a lot of it public land, been pretty serious about it at times. I have taken many does and some smaller bucks, but nothing I ever even considered to be a trophy worthy of being mounted. I have had encounters with Mature bucks about 6 times, all but one were on the ground and most within bowrange. But in those close encounters, as with most mature bucks, the bucks always seem to know exactly how to ensure either a sketchy shot or no shot at all. I had begun to think I was snakebit on taking a mature buck worth mounting.

Yesterday, That all changed and the good Lord blessed me. I was going in the morning, but decided to sleep in and spend time with the family. A good buddy was going after church, he text me about mid morning and said "he was shooting to go by 2:30." I'm not going to lie, I was bummed out, and thought it was going to be a bust with us going so late. But, with both of us having young children, and little free time any time we can sneak away in the woods is a bonus.
We both got to the property about the same time, we were hunting opposite sides of a 45ac. Lake that acts as a pinch point. I got ready and started my 20 min walk at 2:30. I walked a short way into the woods and sprayed the end my pull up with doe estrous to drag along. I have to cross a partially submerged dam to get to the peninsula I am hunting on the upper end of the lake, where the upper Dam creates a pinch point where the deer cross to come around the lake. I get across the first dam and stop to respray my rope. I start back slipping up the peninsula ridge easily and quietly along, after about 20 yards I look to my left and see a Doe at 60yds get up from being bedded. I swing my gun and at least 6 deer blow out of their beds around her and run back away from me. The direction they are running, they are going to have to circle the peninsula or swim the lake. I start running to the top of the ridge where I can see down the other side to the lake. I see them sticking close to the bank and running full bore, no shot. I am still 200+ yards from where I am hunting, so I continue slipping in that direction down through a draw and up onto the ridge I am going to hunt. As I am coming up the ridge I see a doe, and drop to one knee and put her in the scope. As we are having a stare down, I start scanning around her and see a chest and large neck come out from behind a big pine. I swing my gun and can only see his face and left base and I can tell it is a good buck. He takes a step and is locked in on the doe who is locked in on me. He is slightly quartering To me and I settle the crosshairs on the point of his shoulder and squeeze the trigger. When the gun goes off all hail breaks loose and 4 or 5 does scatter and he just disappeared. But I hear what sounds like a pig baying LOUDLY. I stand there trying to take in what just happened, look at my phone and it is 3:05. I reload my gun and ease up onto the ridge and a couple more does take off and jump in and swim across the lake and run right by my buddy, who drops one. I am still not sure how good of a buck he is but I am pretty sure he is down. I eased up to him and once I see antlers sticking up from the leaves another doe takes off!
Here is what I walked up to!



He is my best to date! He is a typical 8 with a kicker on his right G2 and a crabclaw on the right beam making him a Nine point. I am thankful to the good Lord for blessing me with such a fine hunt and a great friend to share it with.

^^
Nice Bustin

BC - what an awesome story - thanks for sharing

Beautiful buck and an even better story Rob, congrats!

Like BC said I know y’all were looking for a deer story but the first one I thought about sharing was an unforgettable turkey hunt. Several years ago I was watching a gobbler and a few hens in a big pecan orchard one afternoon. I finally slipped all the way around them and was facing the rows of the orchard. The turkeys were about 200-300 yds off milling around but not working my way. I was just sitting quietly watching the show beside a pecan tree. Then I heard the Holy Spirit speak to me just as clear as day say “ this is your row”. I was looking down a particular row so I thought wow this is going to happen this afternoon! He’s going to make them walk right to me!” Well the turkeys finally worked off to the wood line and I thought, ok Lord I know I heard you right. So I just kept sitting there and they flew up for the night. A bit confused I slipped out and saw the gobbler hop to some other trees close to where he originally roosted. However it drops off a little bluff so I wasn’t exactly sure where he went. So I snuck out and was going back the next morning before work. That didn’t give me much time at all but I knew what God had spoken to me. I also knew what row I was sitting on! I got setup behind a pecan tree on that row but I was exposed to say the least. Daylight came and I still wasn’t certain where he was roosted. Before too long he and the 2 hens flew down at first light almost simultaneously. He landed 30yds from me and his feet hadn’t been on the ground but a few seconds. I eased my gun around the tree and he was dead at 6:00AM. I was overwhelmed with all kinds of emotion. I learned several lessons on that hunt. Number one, God loves us and deeply cares about even the small or seemingly unimportant things. Number 2- God told me a Blessing was headed my way but He never said it was going to happen RIGHT THEN. Number 3 - God tries to talk to us all the time, but I’m the first to say I get so distracted by other things I miss it. Hunting makes us sit down, be quiet and enjoy His Creation which Proves He created it all.

I hunted the remote today..i found it…the end

Nov. 2016 I was hunting Fort Knox (public land). I walked into a bottom an hour before daylight dragging doe estrous behind me. I could see well enough with a flashlight, and picked out a straight tree to climb up a ridge and headed towards it. Right as I got to it I see a flashlight coming from the other direction, and there’s a stand already on the tree I had picked. So I just waited on the guy who was coming up. Of course it was his stand, so I told him about the drag line in the bottom below, then headed off in a random direction for 300+ yards (shotgun only hunting, so that distance was safe). During all this I was toting a backpack in one hand, shotgun in the other hand, and a Summit climber on my back. It was getting really close to daylight and I was burning up and sweating, and I decided to just climb the next tree that would work. No sooner do I finally get up set up in the tree I hear the guy I met earlier shoot. I recall saying “You’ve got to be kidding?” to myself. But I also figured his shot might push something my way, so I slowly stand up and just wait. No more than two minutes go by and I hear crunching leaves. Very slowly I turned and saw a mid-130’s buck easing out of some thick stuff. Two minutes later he was dead and I was then saying “That ain’t nothing but God!” I guess I said that 10 times, and just sat down and thanked the good Lord for sending another racked buck my way. About an hour later as I was walking back to my truck I ran into the guy from earlier, and helped him drag his buck out. He killed a 15” 8 pt that was following the drag trail I had laid down. And the really cool thing is that I still talk with that guy every year when I hunt Fort Knox.

Here’s some pics of that buck I killed that morning.

Have a dang good buddy from Pensacola. He had a place at miller’s ferry and I told him we’d find ducks there if we hunted them enough. 2010 was the worst duck season I’d seen but we were sitting on an island teal season 2011 when all hell broke loose. The only thing more fun than shooting big groups of blue wings is shooting a gobbler in the face imo

Put in closest to the dam on Seminole early one morning. Met a group of guys on a bachelor trip who were putting in after us. We hunted the island and they set up on the wrong wind side of the island until about 8am. Then they put folks out in float tubes and tried to run up birds to each other. There was already 25mph nw winds(and the chop was so bad you couldn’t even keep up with folks in the tubes) but everything got worse and the groom got pulled through the dam. His fiancé tried to sue the core because they threw him a life ring attached to a rope that was too short. Apparently he made it about half way down before he ran out of slack. Same year I pulled up at our camp with what seemed like all the law in our yard, they pulled a boy up on our dock who had frozen to death. That was a tough year for folks duck hunting on Seminole.

Nice buck!

Dang BC, I didn’t know that happened to your buddy.. That’s as sad as it gets there. I know you and I know his father really appreciated spending that time in the woods with you.

First live deer me and Otis ever finished off…….Got the call late one evening about a big buck an older gentlemen shot near Banks. We decided to meet up the next morning and go after him. Turned Otis loose and he took the track without any issues. He was tracking it so fast that he ran off and left me and the hunter. We got down into this creek bottom and Otis had already crossed and went on. I picked my way to the other side and was standing there waiting on the hunter to cross. I looked down at my GPS while the hunter was making his way across the creek and Otis was 150-200 yards ahead of us.

It took the hunter a minute or two but he finally got across the creek and when he did I looked back down at my GPS again to see what Otis was doing. I remember telling the hunter……”Well dang….now he’s headed back to us.”…….No sooner than I said that I looked up and here comes this giant bodied buck at about 50 yards running right at us with Otis right on his heels. One of us must have flinched or something or he would run right over us…..As it was, he went by us close enough that you could have slapped him on the rear end as he went by. Otis just turned his head and looked at us as he went by and looked like he had a grin from ear to ear.

The buck ended up stopping about 50-60 yards out and after calling Otis back I told the hunter to shoot him. He was so shook up from what had just happened he missed him three or four times…Heck, I was shaking just as bad I believe…Finally the buck bolted again. We got back on the track and after about 100 yards Otis has his hair standing on end like the buck was close. I look around and see him laying flat down on his belly at 20 yards in some cypress knees watching us walk right by him. I pointed him out to the hunter and this time he connected. One heck of a Pike Co buck………..

Very nice CNC

BC - That is hands down the best post I've ever had the pleasure of reading on this forum.

The old gray buck with 9 lives.....First day of gun season on the forest over looking a branch area up high. Boom boom boom a mile away. Boom boom boom a half mile away. Boom boom boom quarter mile away. Dang, a buck is heading my way. Minutes later, I see him walking the branch. With tree top branches far away in the scope, boom. Nothing happens. Dang. Boom again, nothing happens. I'm thinking my scopes is off, so I aim low, boom. The buck turns and runs to the bottom of the other hill side. Minutes of nothing. Then I see a glimpse of him walking up the other hill. With a tiny hole to shoot through, boom again, then nothing again. Dang. I climb down to check things out 10 minutes later. Behold, the sucker is laying on the steep hill side, what a lucky shot. I get up to the deer and he tries to get up, a spine shot. With the water straight down, I grab the hind leg and with one pull, he slides down to the branch. Ok, now die. Minutes later, no death. Not to waste another bullet, I decide to place my gun up against a tree, knee down on the deer, grab the horns in the back with both hands, and stick the deer's nose in the water. Not a bright ideal. Thirty seconds in the water, the deer comes alive. Throws me off backwards while jumping up and runs forty yards and stops, just stands there. I grab the gun and waited. Dang it, finally a lung shot area shot because he starts to walk off minutes later. Then he walks ten yards and just stands there. His rear starts to sway side to side minutes later, down he goes sliding down a steep embankment. At the bottom, he won't die. He is kicking and tring to get up. No other option, boom again. Thirty seconds later, it is gutting time. That many shots at him by everyone, his luck did run out.

The crap buck......Finally reached the tree height in my climber, I was feeling very bad. It was warm that afternoon with my crossbow still at the foot of the tree. I laid my head on the bar in front wanting to go home. Thinking, now is a good time for a deer to walk up in my condition. Yelp, I looked up to the left, here comes a buck. Passing him up at 40 yards. A serious pain hits me and I pucker my rear. Oh crap! Trying to get the safety harness off and clothes down, I made the setting on the front bar just in time. I sprayed the forest floor. Shooting out 10 yards with so much back pressure, such a relief just in time. Not soon after, a tree rat started to bark to the right up the hill. A deer with it's nose in the air, turning and stomping, I just knew I was about to get blown out. Behold, the nice buck came down the hill crossing behind me at 50 yards. When he got perfect down wind, he turned on a dime and headed straight towards the crap smell stopping every 10 yards to look. At 25 yards quartering, perfect front blade bust through. He ran about 90 yards. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

Tree stand dump story... Y'all heard it here on aldeer first. LOL.