Tic Tac Toe

This season has been one for the books. But before I jump to November of 2017, I think it is important to understand my past hunting experiences. 

First of all, for years I was probably the unluckiest hunter around. You see, I started deer hunting regularly when I was in the tenth grade. However, I went to a boarding school away from home, so I was only able to hunt during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. I would spend every one of those holiday mornings and afternoons on my family's small, rural North Carolina property, sitting in cold tree stands waiting for my monster buck. However, my monster buck never came. Ever. Everyone else would harvest a deer, but I just never saw anything worth shooting. So a casual eight years go by and I had NEVER killed a buck. Not one single thing to show for my time spent in the woods. Lots of meditation time in the peaceful woods, sure, but no deer. I even attended Hampden-Sydney College, where on sign in day you get your dorm keys, then check in your guns. Yet, nothing to show for it. Zilch. 

    My luck did turn for the better when I transferred to Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. I was lucky enough to meet an incredible girl who has all the qualities a guy could wish for: she is smart, gorgeous, and her father's actual job description entails that he tend a deer population. Her father is a property manager for a well-known former plantation. (Do you see where I am going with this?)

It did not take long before I met the family and, of course, was out in a tree stand. One of my first hunts on the property involved my sitting on the edge of a cornfield, watching sixteen deer walk from the woods into the corn. Yes, sixteen deer walked out, along with two racoons, in broad daylight. Alas, none were shooters. I hunted all of last season and remained, again, unable to pull my trigger. Let it be known that I have had the same case of bullets since the tenth grade. Some might argue that I should have purchased new ones at least once, but what was the use? I never shot them except the few times I sighted in my gun. 

    It is now 2017, and I am going into my Senior year. Deer season in South Carolina starts in August. This was it, I had to kill a deer. Not just for my own sake, but to gain some respect from others. So I did everything I could that involved superstition. I started growing a very patchy beard, sighted my rifle in twice, and brought along my late grandfather's handkerchief. I was locked and loaded and ready to hunt the upper 90 degree, humid, South Carolina woods. 

Opening morning I, of course, saw absolutely nothing. That afternoon, my girlfriend's father decided to place me in the depths of the swampiest forest he could find. I started on my way to find my box stand. The earth did not make it easy, as I almost lost my boots to the mud multiple times. The mosquitos were so terrible that even my thermacell could not hold them off. Covered in chiggers, I climbed into my stand and before I could even get situated, I saw two summer orange deer. Not just two deer, but two bucks. One was a solid six, and the other, a four. I had never seen a six like this, but I was told to shoot only eight and up. Once the two deer left, I kept thinking to myself that God had given me an opportunity, and I blew it. The biggest rack on a deer I had ever seen just walked away. About thirty minutes later, after texting my girlfriend, I looked up as another buck was strolling by the stand. This was a smaller buck with an orange hide. A few minutes passed and I look back up to see what the little buck was up to, but instead I stopped breathing and my heart dropped. There he was, my monster buck. 

He was everything I imagined him to be, but better. He was darker than any deer I had seen, and his body made him look like a moose. I didn't even count his antlers because with a body this big, you just know. Everything went still as I lifted my rifle into position. Eight years all came together for this single moment. The earth became silent as I centered my sites. Bang. I had just shot the deer of my dreams.

    I immediately text my girlfriend’s dad to let him know that I had just killed a buck the size of a moose. He texted me back saying, “Bo, that was a wall hanger, but you missed. He just ran past my stand.” I missed? My soul had just died. I was in shock and simply speechless. I knew I would never live this down and just to prove him wrong, I went ahead down to see if there was blood. There was not a drop to be found. I had actually missed this buck. Every swear word in the English vocabulary left my mouth. When he came to pick me up, he was not in his truck. He was in a gator and had spotlights. It was then that he told me that he was kidding about seeing the deer and that the shot sounded like it hit something. All I could think was this guy is an ass. Funny, but an actual ass. 

We tracked that deer, and sure enough, we caught a shine in some eyes. There he was, my buck. He was a beautiful eight point crowned with dark, aged horns and weighing in at 178 lbs. I was smiling from ear to ear, and finally knew what it was like to kill a buck. However, the story doesn't end here. ~

~The men were hunting again the next afternoon and asked if I wanted to go. I said that I would join them, but just to take photos of the deer for a project I was doing for school. They said if I was going to be in the woods then I needed to bring my gun. Not wanting to hunt, I wore a dress shirt and sat in an open ladder-stand... just to hang out. I was sitting with my leg on the arm rail and, again, texting my girlfriend when I looked up and saw him. The voice of my girlfriends dad entered my head whispering “bigger than yesterday only”. Yes sir, I was looking right at another eight point that was simply beautiful. My body simply stopped all movements, and I didn't know what to do. The deer was looking right at me from across the field, and I was not wearing any camo. Every single tree his head would go behind, I would move an inch. Once he finally reached the corn pile and relaxed, I was able to focus my site. My hands were shaking to the point that I had to look away just to take a deep breath before I squeezed one off. Sure enough I pulled the trigger, broke his shoulder, and had harvested another heavy eight point buck. 

    Two days and two massive bucks. As I am an impoverished college student, I didn't have the funds to mount them. So I decided to do European mounts by hand. I returned to school and have them hanging on the wall where I can cherish those memories forever. The only thing was...the season was not over. I in no way needed more meat in the fridge. After all, the processor already owned me. 

My girlfriend invited me to their house for a Thanksgiving hunting weekend. I was surely not going to kill another buck, but maybe a doe for a friend to process. I did know, however, that there was a very large buck on the property, thanks to some trail cams. So the day after Thanksgiving, we went out into the dark of the woods. All my elders went closest to the stand where the legitimate buck had been seen. This buck was being hunted weeks before I arrived for Thanksgiving, yet was never seen oSo there I am sitting in a stand squinting for any movement, as the sun was about to rise. In the pitch black, I had my gun on the corn pile for a minute and nothing was there. So I slowly put my gun back in the corner of my box stand and then look back up at the vague white spot that is the corn pile.

The wind was blowing so I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Something was moving out there, but I had just put my scope down. I stared for a few seconds into the darkness when I saw it move again. I slowly got my rifle up and looked out into the darkness. Once I found the white blob of corn, I began to move my site vertically from hooves, legs, chest, neck, rack. There he was, the buck I wasn't supposed to even get a chance to shoot, standing with his face and chest directed right at me. Without hesitation, Bang, I pulled my trigger. He fell right there without a kick or step. As I got down to go see my buck, I took a knee and said a prayer. This one was larger than the previous two, and it was not a question whether or not to spend my savings on getting him mounted. 

 It is now November 26th as I write this article. I have two bullets left from tenth grade box. For the past eight years, I have spent countless hours looking off into my surroundings. I have watched a mother doe feed her young, I have watched a red-tailed hawk land but two trees from me, only to stalk the very same corn as I was stalking. I have seen turkeys and squirrels. Countless pesky, annoying, noisy, squirrels. I have been rained upon, snowed upon, and gotten quite sunburned. I am not going to say that the antlers on my wall were not worth it, because I am one who has so badly wanted a large trophy. I will say, however, that the woods the past eight years have acted as my medicine. When things are not going right in the world, I can sit in the forest and watch life unknowingly unfold beneath me. I have been incredibly blessed this season and have created hunting memories that I will keep with me forever. Oh, and I intend to keep the girlfriend too.
~