Saturday morning found me in the popup for the umpteenth time this year. It had been 5 weeks since I had seen a buck at all, and those were across the neighbors fence-line, about 400 yards away. I had decided to leave the popup on the hill overlooking the 20+ acre pasture bordering the creek bottom, and stick to rifle hunting, to increase my odds of getting a shot at a buck if one decided to cruise through.
Even doe had been scarce, until last weekend. I watched 4 groups meandering through the creek bottom, total of 15 doe. Saturday I resigned myself to doing an all day sit, and the morning started slow. The cows decided that I had something delicious with me, and kept coming up the hill to try to convince me to share
Sometime around 8:20-8:30, the doe started cruising through the bottom, one group of 8 headed east, and a group of 7 decided to go west. Around 9:30, a lone doe came out from the creek, and crossed over the west corner. With the wind out of the northwest, and her being alone, I had hopes that she may be coming in heat and may bring a buck with her. She went into the neighbors pasture and headed upwind of me, into an oak mott.
I kept an eye out on the bottom, and looked to the east where the first group had headed. It was dead for a while, no movement of any kind. Off to the east, I had a couple of doe come out to feed on the one group of oaks that had acorns dropping. Around 10:00, they headed back into the yaupons and out of sight. At 10:20 I received a text from my wife, and I answered her that I had seen a lot of doe, but no bucks. I put my phone in my pocket, and from behind my left shoulder, I heard stomping. Glancing back, he's standing at 25-30 yards, staring at the popup
I slowly leaned forward and picked up my rifle, turned and eased it out the crack in the popup window, and cocked the hammer back. And failed to take it off of safety. Let me tell you, that CLICK sounded like a cannon inside the popup
Away he went, back across the pasture at a dead run, straight away from me. As I'm kicking myself for being so stupid, he comes to a stop and starts looking around. He makes a right turn, and heads down toward the creek at a trot. Only problem is that there is a crossing into a seriously gnarly yaupon thicket. As he gets to a small window just ahead of the crossing, I squeezed off a shot. He bolts and runs, jumps a cross-fence into the creek bottom, and heads for a slough.
I'm thinking "now that's gonna be heck to deal with, if he gets into the middle of that nasty mess and dies" Slightly aggravated at myself, I watch him as he slows down, the stars align, and he makes a hard right and comes straight across the bottom at a slow trot. Halfway across the pasture, he stops. I wait, watching him through the scope, looking for signs of blood. Nothing, not a spot, no wavering...so I decide that I missed (it turns out that I hadn't) take aim at his neck, and slowly squeeze off another round.
His front end drops, back legs start churning, and he bulldozes straight for a small clump of tallow trees. Relief is an understatement 😂 I could finally breath, and the swing of emotions from the CLICK till he made the grove of tallow trees was a huge swing I went from severely ticked of myself to being able to sit back and give a sigh of relief 
Any guesses on score? I didn't even have time to get a single measurement because the rain started as my father-in-law took a couple of pics, and I started cleaning him. One channel through the lungs and one at the base of the neck...but I'm not too worried about wasting the neck bullet, I'd rather be safe than sorry and have to crawl off into the gnarly crap behind that slough
I put the head in the freezer and will drop him off at the taxi next weekend, and I'll have Brandon score him for me then. The best deer we have seen at the farm, and my in-laws have owned it for 25 years now. Things are definitely better now in Austin Co, than they were when he purchased it. Back then, if they saw a buck, it was a rare event to see anything worth talking about
Even doe had been scarce, until last weekend. I watched 4 groups meandering through the creek bottom, total of 15 doe. Saturday I resigned myself to doing an all day sit, and the morning started slow. The cows decided that I had something delicious with me, and kept coming up the hill to try to convince me to share
Sometime around 8:20-8:30, the doe started cruising through the bottom, one group of 8 headed east, and a group of 7 decided to go west. Around 9:30, a lone doe came out from the creek, and crossed over the west corner. With the wind out of the northwest, and her being alone, I had hopes that she may be coming in heat and may bring a buck with her. She went into the neighbors pasture and headed upwind of me, into an oak mott.
I kept an eye out on the bottom, and looked to the east where the first group had headed. It was dead for a while, no movement of any kind. Off to the east, I had a couple of doe come out to feed on the one group of oaks that had acorns dropping. Around 10:00, they headed back into the yaupons and out of sight. At 10:20 I received a text from my wife, and I answered her that I had seen a lot of doe, but no bucks. I put my phone in my pocket, and from behind my left shoulder, I heard stomping. Glancing back, he's standing at 25-30 yards, staring at the popup
I slowly leaned forward and picked up my rifle, turned and eased it out the crack in the popup window, and cocked the hammer back. And failed to take it off of safety. Let me tell you, that CLICK sounded like a cannon inside the popup Away he went, back across the pasture at a dead run, straight away from me. As I'm kicking myself for being so stupid, he comes to a stop and starts looking around. He makes a right turn, and heads down toward the creek at a trot. Only problem is that there is a crossing into a seriously gnarly yaupon thicket. As he gets to a small window just ahead of the crossing, I squeezed off a shot. He bolts and runs, jumps a cross-fence into the creek bottom, and heads for a slough.
I'm thinking "now that's gonna be heck to deal with, if he gets into the middle of that nasty mess and dies"
Slightly aggravated at myself, I watch him as he slows down, the stars align, and he makes a hard right and comes straight across the bottom at a slow trot. Halfway across the pasture, he stops. I wait, watching him through the scope, looking for signs of blood. Nothing, not a spot, no wavering...so I decide that I missed (it turns out that I hadn't) take aim at his neck, and slowly squeeze off another round. His front end drops, back legs start churning, and he bulldozes straight for a small clump of tallow trees. Relief is an understatement 😂 I could finally breath, and the swing of emotions from the CLICK till he made the grove of tallow trees was a huge swing
I went from severely ticked of myself to being able to sit back and give a sigh of relief Any guesses on score? I didn't even have time to get a single measurement because the rain started as my father-in-law took a couple of pics, and I started cleaning him. One channel through the lungs and one at the base of the neck...but I'm not too worried about wasting the neck bullet, I'd rather be safe than sorry and have to crawl off into the gnarly crap behind that slough
I put the head in the freezer and will drop him off at the taxi next weekend, and I'll have Brandon score him for me then. The best deer we have seen at the farm, and my in-laws have owned it for 25 years now. Things are definitely better now in Austin Co, than they were when he purchased it. Back then, if they saw a buck, it was a rare event to see anything worth talking about
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