Hunter: Jason Arrowood
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Greene
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
It was Saturday afternoon, and I had just got to the stand about 2:45. It wasn't long and I saw some movement of in the distance. When I got my binoculars up and saw it was a buck and he had 5 on one side, I thought to myself, it's that goofy 7-point I had passed on the weekend before. But as I keep watching him I noticed the other side had 5 also, and I thought to myself, that can't be the 10 I got on camera so many times because I've never seen a trophy on camera and had a chance to take them. Where the deer was standing and the brush between me and him, there was no way I can get a good clean shot, so I'm just playing the waiting hoping this works out. After about 15 minutes he starts heading off, going up the side of a ditch that leads into a 5-year-old clearcut. I grab my grunt call and gave it a try, and he never even turned his head. A few minutes went by and he was gone, so I picked up my phone and text my wife and a buddy that was hunting with me that I had seen the 10-point I had on camera and couldn't get a shot. My buddy responded, “that sucks” and my wife says, "Maybe he'll come back," which we all know these deer don't come back, but who's gonna tell their wife she's wrong. So I responded with a "hopefully." Around 20 minutes go by, and I see a small doe step out of the overgrown clearcut, and she squatted to re-leave herself, and when she stood up, she had 3 spikes come running in on her. One didn't like the odds, so it came up the hill toward the stand and the other two were circling one another. Then the larger one took the doe and pushed her out into the cutover. All the commotion must have gotten the big deer's attention because he came running down the ditch and jumped up right where the doe was. He was blowing as to say, hey I'm here. By this time I'm already looking through my scope waiting for the opportunity to take him. Any step left or right and I'm gonna be holding my trophy, but he never turned, and he walked straight off into the cutover. I thought to myself, did that really just happen to me twice with the same deer. My heart just sank. While i'm sitting there taking it all in, the spike is standing just 25 yards away eating acorns. I raised my head and looked back down where all the action had taken place, and I see the buck that's been giving me fits with highs and lows is walking back out. This time he's looking up the hill directly at the stand I'm sitting in as to say, I know you're there and I'm toying with you. As I get my gun up and to not spook the spike standing beside me, he steps behind a big oak. All I can see is this little tree behind the oak getting wiped side to side multiple times. Then he steps out, but he's still facing me. All I'm saying to myself is, "one more step please one more step." About that time, he takes two steps, and just before he can step off into the ditch again I squeezed the trigger, and he took off like a race horse. I'm going into panic mode, so I bolt another shell in, and when I get on him, he's standing where I had originally seen him. He dropped, and it was all over. I wanted to tell my buddy to come over, but he was trying to get a great buck himself, so once I took it all in and recomposed myself I started texting everyone in my phone, and this was one of those times I was so happy to tell my wife she was right.
