The Quest For Obsession

Watching him grow since March really built up the anticipation for the 2018-19 deer season for me. When I say him, I am referring to a buck I like to call Obsession. As soon as he started growing his antlers back and I saw his uniqueness, the obsession began for me and he became my target buck for the 2018 season.

For my lunch break every Wednesday starting back this past January, I would leave the GON office and go check my trail cameras on the small tract I hunt in Buckhead—the real Buckhead in Morgan County, of course—to see if he had walked by.

I hunt this property, along with my brother and grandfather. I kept Obsession a secret for several months, until Brad Gill questioned about if I had anything good on camera. I couldn’t hold the secret any longer and finally showed him a photo. He was planned to be my first bow kill ever, that was my plan since I got the first picture. However, things don’t always go as planned. Especially with a bow.

For me, I don’t typically like hunting out of a tree stand. I will, but at the time, I was hunting out of what seemed a very small ground blind. The morning of Sept. 8^{, which was} my second or third sit of the season, I was determined that I was going to kill a deer. I was anxiously waiting for Obsession to walk out, but I also felt like letting an arrow loose for the first time ever.

Prior to this hunt, on my second sit of the season, Obsession walked straight out in front of me. I had the perfect shot, but my heart was pounding, and my nerves were going so crazy that I literally couldn’t pull back on my PSE bow.

I truly thought I would never see him again with just how loud I thought my heart was beating. But I was wrong. He did come out during my hunt on Sept. 8. Obsession was with his running buddy, a smaller buck. However, Obsession hung back in the tree line, while his buddy ate corn. I decided at that point that I would kill Obsession’s buddy. He was a nice 8-point and would be a nice first bow kill. So I pulled back my bow, had my pin set, and once I was confident in where I had the pin, I let the arrow fly… stay tuned for the rest of the story of my very first bow kill.