Hunter: Lance Smith
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Talbot
Season: 2016-2017
Hunt Story
On the morning of Oct 23, 2016 , I got off of work from the fire station I work at around 6 a.m. I flew home and picked up my son for our second hunt of the year. The night before I discovered this buck, which I missed two years earlier, was back on one of my cameras after disappearing for a whole year. As we arrived at our lease, I was schooling my son on a few safety points before I set him off to his stand for the morning. I walked around 1/2 a mile to my stand location, and while climbing the tree I noticed a doe feeding on corn. I continued to slowly climb in my Tom Cat 2 thinking about the buck I saw in camera while trying not to spook the doe feeding. As I climbed, she eased off but never ran. After daybreak around 7:30, I had three does approach my location from a clear cut. The does filtered directly under my stand and winded me as they got 50 yards behind me. The larger of the three blew and they all ran . This had me concerned but all of that went away when at 8:10 a tall 10-pointer approached from my right. As the 10-pointer approached, I got him in my sights and was just fixing to squeeze the trigger when I saw something moving through the clearcut to my left. Low and behold it was the deer I had on camera, which was a much larger and wider 10-pointer. When these two deer got within sight of each other they began grunting and sizing each other up. Their ears laid back and they began circling each other, and I knew I needed to make a shot before a fight ensued. The larger buck gave me a clear shot, so I took it and the buck jumped and took off stumbling and crashing as he ran. The other 10-pointer bounced off to my left and gave me a shot on him also, but I passed in hopes of my son having a chance at him later. I was shaking and knew I needed to give the deer time to expire, so I waited about 30 minutes to get down. When I began looking for blood, things looked promising until the blood trail ran out after about 60 yards, but I did hear the deer crashing, so I was still hopeful. I continued to look for blood and didn't find any, so with the help of my cousin we went toward where the buck was heard crashing, and there he was in all his beauty. Then the high fives and pictures began to fly. The rest is history...
