Stories

Et tu?

It was as cold as it gets this morning and it was the last time for Brian and I to deer hunt. Brian had a flight out that Sunday afternoon from Meridian and I had to work in Birmingham the next day. Brian chose to get in the climbing stand that morning and I went to the Black Widow stand. It looked like a winter wonderland from my stand. The tall grass and weeds were frozen with a light coating of dew, sparkling white but dead still that morning. The ground was frozen as solid as concrete As usual when it is that cold, I was just trying to stay warm and was thinking about giving up and going to the heater. I didn’t want to quit since that meant the only horns I had for the season were one’s I had shot off a deer, I wanted the whole deer. I had worked and hunted to hard to give up now so I sat a little longer. I looked out of the stand to see horn’s moving above the frozen grass. The deer was moving up from Clarko and heading for the hill above the Black Widow stand. The shot was to my right so for the first time, I placed the 7MM Mag on my left shoulder and put the scope a little behind the deer’s left shoulder so I would make sure I got a solid shot and worse case, track him in the daylight. I was hoping for him to stop but he kept a fast walking pace up to the edge of the woods. I knew then it was now or never so I fired. In my mind I knew I had shot a little to the right but I knew from the deer’s reaction, I had hit him solid. My ears were ringing big time so I couldn’t hear how far he ran in the woods. I waited 2 minutes and couldn’t stand it so I got up and started walking back to my car calling my brother to let him know I’d shot a big deer and to rub it in. He was hen pecked by his wife and going to church and he was hating it! I tried to call Brian to let him know that shot he heard was me shooting a big deer and it was time to track it down. Brian wouldn’t answer his dang phone and I tried again and again. Then I hear a BOOM. My phone then rings and its Brian telling me he had just seen horn’s moving through the cut over and shot a buck! I walked back to where I’d shot the deer and there was blood everywhere, good sign. I stepped into the wood and there he was, just 15 feet in the woods. The 7 point had the largest body of any deer I had seen killed out here to date but I understand Tyler Acres shot a 10 point that was big. I jump in the car and raced over to Brian and we get his deer and start dragging it down the trail and up the hill of death. Brian tells me the story of seeing this buck walking through a cutover and about then his phone begins to vibrate in his shirt pocket where his keys also are. The buck stops for a moment but then the faint noise quits so the buck moves a little closer. Brian is getting ready to take the buck out when, well, I called him back. Brian said he about died when it started going off again. As soon as it stopped vibrating again, the buck went on about his way and Brian took him out. It was 4 point with part of a horn missing, maybe from sparing with the buck I had just shot. We managed to get Brian’s deer dressed, arraigned some dry ice and get him off with his deer. I went back and finished my deer and drove back to Birmingham. What are the chances of both of us getting the best deer of our lives (up to that point) with in 5 minutes of each other?

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