Patience Is A Virtue

Celeste Turner, of Statham, with her best buck to date, taken in Oconee County on Sept. 14.

With the dog days of summer coming to a close, deer hunters are anxiously waiting for the crisp autumn air to set in. Year after year, we spend countless hours pouring sweat, all in hopes that it pays off once the season comes around.

With a cell cam and corn out, the stage was set each evening for a buck I named “Big John” to make his appearance, and without fail he would. I would sit on the other side of our pasture with binoculars and wait for him to strut his way to the corn. From the moment we saw the first picture of him, he quickly became the hot topic at the dinner table, or any family gathering. We started to pattern him and realized that we might have a potential record deer walking around.

During the summer months, any buck you see on camera will have a sleek velvet coat surrounding their antlers. For a hunter in Georgia, it is quite the opportunity to kill a buck still in velvet, as bow season is typically later. I had high hopes that Big John might retain some of his until opening day, but then we got a picture with some hanging off, and I knew it wouldn’t last. Nonetheless, Big John still had it all. He had the mass, the spread, the height and the points to be my target buck come opening day.

After months and months of waiting and watching, the day was finally here. I had done the work and prepped to the best of my ability, and the time had come to see if it would all pay off. After what had been a pretty rainy opening morning, I decided to get in the stand a little earlier than what I had originally planned, and man am I glad I did.

After sitting for an hour and a half, a smaller 8-pointer had come out in front of me, and I decided to start taking a video of him. While looking through the screen, I saw another deer starting to make his way out. To my surprise, that deer was Big John. I knew that after the rain, he could come out earlier, but I had no idea it was going to be 5:21 p.m. and 28 yards away.

Without hesitation I quickly set my phone down and put the 30-yard pin on the lethal zone. Quite honestly, I rushed the shot, but I knew without a doubt it was him and didn’t want to waste time, or risk him seeing something he didn’t like and take off running. It took me all of two minutes to see him, shoot him and call my boyfriend and tell him.

The adrenaline rushing through me was unreal. My hands were shaking and a bit numb feeling. My heart was racing, and my mind still hadn’t processed what I had just accomplished. The shaking of my voice was uncontrollable, but I was able to make out the words, “I got him.” Tears started streaming down my cheeks, and at that point all I could do was thank the Good Lord for giving me the opportunity.

After taking a minute to gather myself, I called my dad. Of course more tears came when I heard him answer. He was shocked to see me calling at 5:30 p.m., but he already knew I got him, otherwise I wouldn’t have been calling that early. My dad had been just as anxious for the day to come because he knew how badly I wanted to get Big John. He also knew how patient I had been and the prep work I had done to make sure I had all the odds stacked in my favor. Deer hunting is all about patience. Yes, most hunters enjoy being in nature and getting away from the world around them, but there’s also a waiting game that must be played. You might sit for hours upon hours and not see a single deer. Those long, hards sits just make the action-packed ones all worth it though. However, my patience started around 10 years old. I never had much to begin with, but deer hunting was even more challenging. I waited and watched for years to kill my first buck. When that finally happened, I went years without killing another buck, because I wanted a bigger one. My patience was wearing thin, and last year I killed a 7-pointer that definitely could’ve used another year. I should’ve let him walk but couldn’t be patient enough to. I had a goal in my mind that the next deer I killed had to be one that I wanted to shoulder mount. That was my next step.

Big John was not only my first bow-kill but also the first deer I will have shoulder mounted. I am grateful that God graced me with enough patience to wait. I am beyond thankful for the opportunity to have harvested my best deer to date.