Hunter: Alison Guyton
Points: 6 (2L, 4R)
County: Bartow
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
Life had been a bit busy around here, and my husband not able to get stands out as usual on our club, but going into the season I knew I would not be making it to my usual ground blind location as a disabled hunter. Being 12 days out from knee surgery to repair 2 torn menisci and clean up a bunch of arthritis in my knee didn't put a damper on my hunting addiction. Thursday 10-8-15 we headed out and my husband set me up with an old lock-on at the base of a tree in a hardwood bottom in an area I scoped out last year and named "Grand Central Station" for all the game trails crossing every which way and tracks across the old logging road. Trails and tracks that never led said animals past my ground blind the prior two years, except a 500-lb. boar. My perfect set up, you know, If Momma's happy, everyone is happy! The area is a natural funnel with multiple ridges and clearcuts feeding into the hardwoods. Watching the weather, we were glad to wake up at 5 a.m. and see the rain had let up so my husband and I got ready and made the short 20-minute drive to our lease in Kingston. Before daylight, I slowly, carefully made the short 20-yard walk off the old logging road into the hardwoods to my stand, praying not to slip or slide and injure my newly fixed knee, knowing what a disaster that would be! I watched intently as the woods awoke and although it wasn't raining I was in enough of a canopy to be getting pretty darn wet, so I covered the breech of my gun with a spare shirt from my backpack. About 8:30 a.m. light rain was moving back in and I checked my radar app, showing heavier rain behind it. Great, but so long as no thunder, I'm here to stay! By 9 a.m. it was pretty well pouring again, but I had change of clothes in my pack and the radar showed no rain once this moved by. Checked my phone at 9:41 and returned texts with my daughter til 9:49 checking if we were still hunting in the rain. I said I was, but dad was back in the truck, up on the logging road about 75 yards from me. Another quick text to my brother who lent me his muzzleloader, put my phone back in its Ziploc bag and my pocket and back to the woods. Looked up, saw the fox squirrel return to his oak tree and jump up on it then something turn the corner behind him and sniff the ground where it just jumped from. It was this small buck, who then passed down into some thicker vegetation and munched on some acorns before coming back up towards the trail he came from like he was heading back out. This gave me plenty of time to get the spare shirt off my gun, the fingertip from a processing glove off the barrel and get angled right to aim. I'd say it was 50-60 yards or so and I thought he was quartering away a bit, but the shot went pretty much through and through catching both front lungs. Of course my husband came down immediately with the rain, not wanting to miss a blood trail, but there wasn't one, just one wad of hair. He only went about 50 yards and laid down by a blow down and was DOA when my husband tracked and found him within 15-20 minutes of the shot. Although I'm so addicted and terribly wish I could participate in the thrill of the tracking, I know I can't, but I'm blessed my husband puts up with my addiction, makes all the accommodations for me he can and takes me hunting and fishing even if he doesn't want to go. This isn't the biggest or best deer, but it's mine, and my first with a muzzleloader!
