By Savannah

December 18, 2014

"It looks like rain, do you still want to go? The forecast is showing heavy thunderstorms and rain Friday night and sporadic rain throughout Saturday. But Sunday looks perfect. We could get there early on Friday evening and try to get a screened shelter..." With a heart for hunting Savannah chose to get going. We arrived at camp Friday night, secured a nice screened shelter and hunkered down for the storms that were to come Saturday night.

After orientation on Saturday we scouted our area, setup and hunted for a couple of hours. We could hear the storms coming and nothing was moving except a big armadillo. Savannah decided to use our remaining light to prepare for the Sunday morning hunt. She checked the compass, weather, wind and temperatures then pointed to where she thought we should set up. According to her information we would have the sun at our back and wind in our face. Perfect. We found an oak flat with some fresh scrapes nearby then quickly brushed it in and left for the night. Our gracious hosts cooked deer chili for dinner and we both ate to our hearts content. We love deer chili.

Back to camp and hunker down for the storms. They rumbled in with a long heavy rain but the thunder boomers weren't that bad. Morning came with a light misty rain as we walked through the muddy bogs on the way to our brush blind. The temperature was warm in the upper 50s lower 60s with little to no wind. We sat in the pitch dark for a good hour before day break. Mosquitos were eating us alive. I kept thinking if we only had our gadget to repel them this would be just fine, but it was nowhere to be found. Day break finally arrived and we were still dealing with the mosquitos and not a lick of breeze. Nothing was moving and I explained that deer don't like to move with no wind, they like to check wind for scent of danger and with no wind they lose this option.

Shortly after that whispering conversation the breeze kicked in and shifted from East to South, then to Southwest. In a few short minutes the wind was blowing directly in our face and the Sun was rising at our backs just as Savannah had planned. I acknowledged her good decisions and we continued to deal with the mosquitos. I told her the breeze would get the deer moving, I just didn't realize it would be so quickly. Out of nowhere two doe bolted across the field in front of us from East to West at 50 yards out looking behind with fear and faded into the woods. I told Savannah to get up on her rifle and get ready. As she steadied the rifle on the bog pod we immediately noticed a buck, no two bucks, three bucks to the East approaching from the same location the doe had just run through! Savannah dialed in on the middle buck and couldn't get a clear sight of the first buck. Then the first buck cautiously walked out into the open. He was magnificent.

Savannah was focused, looking at the other deer through her scope. I whispered with a smile, "Look out front in the field". Savannah lifted her eyes from the scope, took a deep breath then adjusted her rifle and scope. He started to run after the doe! 'I'm going to stop him!" RRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnt! He stopped and stared into the woods where we stood still. Savannah was working hard to get the right shot, but no shot came. The buck was getting nervous and started to move again! RRrrrrrrrnt! He stopped again! The .243 rang out with the Superformance SST true to its mark. The buck bronco kicked, turned and drifted into the woods to the Southeast about 40 yards. Teary eyed and joyous I gave Savannah a big hug and told her how proud I was. We tried to stay calm and agreed to wait 30 minutes. Just then one of the other two bucks circled back around in front of us. He was a dandy. We watched him for nearly 10 minutes, observing and paying attention to how bucks react, look and behave. Then he found the shooter bucks scent trail. We watched him follow the trail and into the trees he went. Shortly after he entered the trees we heard him snort wheeze, he had tracked her buck and that's where she would find him. The long 30 minutes finally passed and the tracking began. A good blood trail and a few short minutes later Savannah was admiring the magnificent buck right where the other buck said he would be. Great job Savannah! (We forgot all about the mosquitos)