The Coke Can Buck

I’m not sure what happened to the buck. It’s been more than 20 years since we met face to face. Somewhere in the space of time, my arrow is still on its way to the vitals, but it will never get there. It was never meant to get there.

The place I hunted has since sold and a string of houses line the road where I used to park to walk in to my deer stand. I will never hunt there again, and I know it. There was an old logging road in those Morgan County hardwoods that took me to my simple ladder stand on a rocky hill between two wet-weather creeks. It was where I killed my first buck with a bow and my first bobcat with a bow. It is where I missed a beautiful 8-point with my bow that I still think about from time to time, but that’s not the real “one that got away.”

One Friday afternoon in October 2004, the day before rifle season opened, I parked at the paved road and began my long walk down the old logging road to my ladder stand. Not even halfway there, I saw a large poplar tree on the right with a fresh buck rub. Yellow shavings littered the ground beneath and got my mind churning. I studied the deep gash marks that tore high up the trunk and imagined the tines that did that damage. With my heart beating faster and my curious mind overpowering reason, I veered off the logging road, following the worn deer trail leading from the newly discovered poplar rub. Then, I saw another. This time a young willow oak, with its bark stripped savagely to reveal a bright orange, woody interior. Once at that tree, I kneeled to the ground and could see another tree victim, a squatty cedar with gouge marks into its orange-yellow trunk. I could smell the cedar’s aroma well.

I crept along and came to a natural grassy opening surrounded by mostly poplar trees. The opening was just large enough to allow a good stream of sunlight in to bathe the ground and encourage the green growth. “Natural food plot,” I thought as a grin spread across my face. I had never known such a place existed on the property.

On the edge of the little opening was a young privet hedge with branches dangling over the green ground cover, and directly beneath were the fresh paw marks of an active scrape. The pungent odor of buck urine wafted up from the moist dirt. I searched the perimeter and quickly found a downed pine tree and made a makeshift ground blind out of pine limbs.

I was still getting ready, putting on my face mask, nocking my arrow, and settling in when I heard crashing directly in front of me. Three does were trotting straight for the grassy opening. One paused briefly at the edge of the grass, looked back, then dashed on to catch up with the other two who had passed 15 yards from me. The hunt could have ended there for me as a success. Ground hunters know the adrenaline rush of having deer so close at eye level.

More crashing in front of me caused me to divert my eyes from the departing does, and when I did, my mind couldn’t make sense of the scene. I guess I went into a state of buck fever shock because all I could focus on was the buck’s antler bases that looked to be the size of Coke cans. My brain finally caught up with my eyes as the buck proudly pranced into the grassy clearing to pause and look for his does. He held his head high.

My unbelieving eyes traced the antler curves up and up and up in a lustful, mesmerizing longing. Though the width of spread was probably only 14 to 15 inches between the dark, lyre shaped rack, the mind-boggling mass carried throughout the entire beams and up each tall tine of the symmetrical 10-point frame. But then my brain pulled my eyes back to the ridiculous bases, those “Coke cans.” Never had I ever seen mass that heavy on any deer, dead or alive, or even at the taxidermy shop.

My thoughts were interrupted by the regal buck’s sudden dash forward. He charged menacingly, head down, into the small privet hedge at the edge of the opening and proceeded to ravage the bush in the most aggressive display of tree rubbing I have ever witnessed. The small branches were flying off to the ground, and several limbs were stuck in the buck’s tall tines.

It wasn’t until the buck lifted his head and shook the debris from his antlers that I thought about shooting. I had been so enthralled by the spectacular show of power that I forgot I had a bow in my hand. With no attempt to conceal my movements, I clumsily drew my bow and frantically searched for the deer’s vitals. Though he was only 20 yards or so and I was moving around as loud as a hog rooting for acorns, the massive 10-point never looked my way. He lowered his head, cocked it to the side like he was challenging an opponent and then attacked the poor privet hedge again, or what was left of it.

I impatiently waited at full draw for the show to pause. Finally, the buck lifted his head once more, small limbs and leaves adorning his headgear. I took aim and quickly punched the release.

I expected the loud WHACK, but what I didn’t expect was my prize buck to continue standing. In fact, he casually looked the other way. I had no clue what happened. I had heard the arrow’s impact, right? In a sheer panic, I fumbled around attempting to grasp another arrow to launch. At my commotion, which probably sounded like a bulldozer coming through the woods, the buck looked me directly in the eyes and arrogantly flicked his tail in farewell and unhurriedly trotted out of view and out of my life. Well, not really out of my life….

In a state of shock, disbelief and confusion, I shuffled my way to the torn privet hedge. Then, I saw it. My orange and yellow fletchings were suspended a couple of feet off the ground. The arrow disappeared into a young, soft poplar trunk about 2 inches in diameter. On the other side, my G5 Montec single piece broadhead sat frozen harmlessly at the end of my arrow. It never had a chance to do its work. 3 or 4 feet was all the distance that remained from the tip of the broadhead to where the buck’s chest had been. The three razor-sharp blades simply never got there.

I guess you can say I became obsessed with that buck, but I never saw him again. No doubt, I put too much pressure in those Morgan County hardwoods, and that ole buck probably knew every time I entered his home.

Boy, did that buck teach me a lot though. By passionately hunting him, I learned the woods well. I became a stump-sitter that year, preferring to hunt from the ground without any manufactured blind. It had worked once… why couldn’t the setup work again? I indeed saw several nice bucks hunting that way, including a fine 9-point that I should have flung an arrow at, but I never took another shot the rest of that season.

I decided to put out a trail camera the following year, but the Coke Can Buck was gone. Some days, I wonder if he was really as big as what I remember. I have no way of knowing for sure. The beauty of not knowing, of not having a witness, of not having a picture is that he can be as big as I want him to be. He will forever be “the one that got away” no matter how many game animals evade my hands.

But this is all a part of what we do as sportsmen and women. In many ways, the ones that get away are more important for our human spirits than the ones we harvest. These mysterious animals remain in our lives as sort of spirits or legendary creatures in a timeless realm of our minds. They never grow old. They never die. But they always encourage us forward in our promise-filled yet uncertain outdoor quests that we all long for and dream of as hunters and fishers.