Well, by Thursday we had crossed the halfway point and the weather was still keeping its oppressive thumb on top of us.  The morning hunt was a bust for me.  I headed back to the bean field where I had the encounter with the big 10 point, but all I saw was a single doe at 8:45 a.m.  One of the other guys in camp had a busy morning but ended up passing up 2 bucks in the 110-120″ range.

After 3 days of hunting, climbing up treestands, and riding the guns around in 4WD territory, I had a brief thought to shoot my gun to double check my ‘zero’ on Thursday afternoon.  But convenience got in the way of reason, and I presumed my gun was still punching 10’s.  Well, since every good deer hunting story needs a good excuse…that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

Thursday evening, I took a ground blind on the corner of a 1-2 square mile CRP field.  The farmer had bush hogged the outer 2 rows a couple weeks prior and fresh green shoots of grass and wheat were re-emerging.  Nature called at about 7:15 p.m. and since the wind was perfect and my hopes were receding with the light that was left, I answered the call.  No sooner had I unzipped, than I see a deer step around the corner of the CRP field about 500 yards distant.  I pulled my binoculars up to my eyes and my heart skipped a couple beats.  MONSTER 8 POINTER!

I got zipped back up, and carefully climbed back in the blind.  Yep, 11-12 inch G2s and G3s, long sweeping beams, mass, SHOOTER!  Best part of all this, he’s headed right towards me.  As I exchanged my binoculars for my gun, he still had to cover 300 yards before he would be in range.  Unfortunately, when I put my gun in the shooting sticks and focused my scope on his headgear, I got my first head-on view of the big boy and realized he was just a big half-rack.  Now, decision time?

Text message to the landowner Brad…”big half rack 8 point, what do you think”…….

Brad’s reply….”Go for it, ur choice”

Thanks for the help Brad…lol.  But I had made up my mind.  As the years go on, I have been convinced that a deer’s age is a better indicator of quality than the size rack he carries on his head.  After studying the buck’s missing side, I decided he had not broken a beam - he was a bona-fide half-rack buck sporting a 5 or 6 inch split brow tine on the one side.

I’m shooting…100 yards he pauses just long enough to put the crosshairs on him…BOOM!  Shot felt steady and I was confident as I burst out the back end of the blind and tried to keep tabs on the buck as he raced across the CRP field…wait, where is he?!?!  He must be down already!

To give you an idea, I snapped this picture out of the blind a full 20 minutes before I shot at the big half-rack.  Getting real dark!

Long story short, a couple hours spent looking on Thursday night and Friday morning and several AA batteries later, clean miss.  I had misjudged the distance in the failing light and should actually have shot him for longer than 100 yards.  Additionally, I had been holding for a heart shot, probably not the best decision on my part…should have been holding more on his shoulder.  But, thankfully, not a drop of blood was found…a clean miss.  The only thing worse than missing a mature buck is wounding one…and the latter is tenfold worse than the former.

I guess I should be thankful he was a half rack.  Even though he was an older age-class buck, he would not have been material for a shoulder mount - so I guess if he was 160″ mainframe 10 pointer I might be a little sicker to my stomach as I type this.  Regardless, it was a great encounter, and maybe he’ll sprout his other side back for next year and I can kill him as a 5 year old.

Anyways, enough about my woes.  Dad had a great hunt on Thursday evening, but despite putting 4 or 5 bucks in his sights a couple marginal deer - 18″ 8 pointer, 17″ 8 pointer - made it through the evening without being deemed shooters.   He sat in the small clover plot that had produced the mid-140s 10 pointer on Monday night.

Down to the nitty gritty, Friday’s our last day.