Hunter: Ronnie Rich
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Lee
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
Being a football coach for the Lee County Trojans, this was the first off weekend I have had since the opening of the season. My wife and I got a good nights sleep, and I was able to be refreshed and alert. As I got within a few feet of my stand, I smelled a strong musky odor and heard movement ahead of me. I waited for a few minutes before climbing into my stand. After about 10 minutes I saw some activity in the woods in front of me, but it was too thick to get a shot. I heard the movement to my right, but the cypress branches blocked my view. Around 8:15 I saw a large squirrel out in front of me in the trees. I began to watch him, thinking I probably wouldn't see anything this morning. The stand I was on dosen't have a shooting rail or blind yet, as that is still being made for me. I hadn't even planned to hunt the stand, but my wife wanted to hunt where I had planned to, so I made the choice to take this particular stand this morning. As I watched the squirrel, I saw some white in the woods on the edge of the clearing in front of me. I thought to myself, "I hope I didn't miss a deer watching this squirrel!" Within 5 minutes the buck walked out less than 50 yards from the stand, straight in front of me. The sun was at my back and in his eyes. He looked right at me, and I waited for him to lower his head. This is the first time in 2 years we have had the chance to hunt, so I had a bit of buck fever going. I raised my rifle when he did lower that beautiful rack and got a bead on him. As soon as I did, he looked right at me again, but it was too late. He was still facing my straight on, so I put the sight just above his left shoulder and shot. My wife, the landowner and I looked for blood , but found none. Thinking I had missed due to "buck fever" I was dejected. We decided to run to the house and pick up our beagles, just in case. We have two second-generation beagles and one third generation. All three went to work and in less than 10 minutes (the humans looked for over 1/2 an hour) our oldest male Snoopy was on the deer, followed quickly by his sister Moola and his son Obi Wan Kenobi (yes I'm a Star Wars fan) found the deer.
