Hunter: David Ditter
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Cherokee
Season: 2019-2020
Hunt Story
This morning was the perfect morning to hunt during the chasing phase, and sure enough that's what was happening at about 9:15 on the 23rd of October. My log truck had been out of commission since Monday, and the man that could repair it was calling me at 9:05. We talked while I'm sitting in my stand, and he agreed to take care of the repair today and we hung up. Ten minutes later, I spot a doe and at least two of her children walking briskly down an old logging road. Within 200 feet, a buck is also walking that logging road, briskly also. Another buck comes along within a very short distance, and my eye caught movement behind them, but, since I am mainly interested in the venison, I turned my attention to the first buck, as I was pretty sure the doe would turn on a well used trail about 80 yards in front of me and lead all of this to that point. Well, at some point, the two bucks started running, to try to beat each other out, and all the deer started running. I had no shot opportunity, and would have no shot opportunity until they reached the trail in front of me. For some reason, that first buck stopped running when he reached that trail, and he started easing along. I chose my window of opportunity and fired when he reached it, and he went down about 20 yards after the shot. At that point, another deer started easing back toward me from the area of the logging road, and kept getting closer. I wasn't positive the first buck had 4 points on one side, I thought he did, just not sure. So, as this second deer got closer, seeing that he was a buck with a sizable rack, I had to wait for him to get into a spot where I could be sure that he had 4 on one side. By this time, he was about 40 yards out, I finally could determine four on one side, and pulled the trigger. He turned and ran toward the logging road and down a fairly steep hill, till I heard him crash at the bottom. So, the work began, and after securing the first buck in the back of the truck, I headed back to look for the blood trail of the second one, followed it easily to the bottom of the hill, where I found him in the bottom of a dry creekbed. What a terrific morning, probably won't do that again!
