This weekend was the opening of black powder in Oklahoma. I was bummed because I had to work opening morning but Mister go to go out. At 5 am I woke up to hear rain beating down on our roof. I will be totally honest, I was somewhat glad that I was working. I just really didn't want to go hunt in the rain. Mister and his grandpa went out and didn't see anything until they were walking to the truck. It quit raining before they got to where they were hunting but the wind was blowing something fierce.
We were planning on going somewhere else that night but it was raining and we all discussed it and decided to not got Saturday evening. The wind was still blowing like crazy and none of us really wanted to fight it. There were gusts of over 30 MPH! We watched the UFC fights and got home about midnight.
Sunday morning they went while I stayed home to do homework and work on the house a little bit. They got home and didn't see a thing again. We decided to meet up at 4ish and go out to one spot where we have different tree stands.
I am going to give you a little background. I shot my first buck last year out of the tree stand that I set in. This was my first buck.
I spotted him myself and was so proud of him. I actually thought that he was a she!!! I told Mister's grandfather that I shot big doe. He was a spike and was 115 lbs field dressed. This is why I am picky about who or IF anyone hunts in my stand. It is a perfect location and we are trying to manage the population of the deer in this area.
Now that you know all that let's move forward. Sunday evening as we were getting ready I looked at Mister and said " I am going to shoot a deer tonight". He grinned and said "I hope you do but don't get your hopes up so high that you will be upset". He was trying to prepare me since it was still windy and was 78 degrees outside.
I put on my camo and we headed to the stand. I crawled up into my stand. Made sure everything was ready and waited. I got excited when the cows left the area that I was in. I am in a stand that is a box so I can move around a little bit and take my phone to play with. I saw a coyote run down the fence line, lay down and look around and then get up and start running again. I had a wasp up in the trees stand that was hunting with me. A squirrel runs across the field and jumps into another tree. The nature that you see is amazing but I also had my phone to keep me company. I had been playing Words With Friends and had ran my battery down so I put it in my bag and switched sides of my trees stand to where I was facing west.
I heard something behind me and looked over my shoulder. I saw a forked horn buck (four point) coming up and decided that I would take a shot if it presented itself. I switched to the other side of the stand to where I could face the east. He is a buck that we had pictures of on the trail camera and I had already said that if the opportunity presented itself I was going to shoot him. I pulled up, clicked the safety off and waited for him to turn perfectly broadside so that I could take a shot. Then I noticed something coming up behind him. I looked up over my gun and saw a gorgeous buck. I decided to see how big he was and saw that he was at least a 7 point buck (I thought), so I made my decision that I was changing bucks!
I pulled the gun over and put my cross hairs on him. He was still walking towards me so I just watched him. He was so pretty. The smaller buck walked up to him and the bigger buck stopped and just bristled. The smaller buck smelled the bigger bucks horns and the big buck turned away. The big buck then began walking again and soon turned broadside to me. I had been watching him the whole time through the scope so I was ready. I centered the cross hairs just behind his shoulder, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Instead of the BOOM that I was expecting to hear, I heard CLICK. My stomach dropped then.
I think every hunter gets nervous or excited when they see the deer and make the decision that the one particular deer is "the one". Hearing that click was a stressful sound to me though. Like I said, I am basically in a box so I reach over to my bag, grab my extra primers, open them up and grab one. I kept my head still the whole time and really figured that they were going to run when they heard the click, but they didn't. I pull the bolt up and back on my muzzle loader and watch them when it makes the noises that it makes. Again, I thought they were going to run. They were still standing there. I take the primer off the nipple and put a new one on. I push the bolt frontwards and down and it makes a noise again but they stayed.
When I looked up this time I saw a sight that Mister still hasn't gotten to see and I had only hoped that I would see - the two bucks had started fighting with each other. I have seen it on TV but to see the two bucks looking at each other and the hit horns/heads and go at each other is amazing. I watched for a few seconds and got the big buck in my cross hairs again, waiting for a good broadside shot. I took a deep breath to relax, because honestly I was shaking from the stress of all the little accidents that were piling up. When I got my good broadside shot I lined the cross hairs up behind his shoulder and pulled the trigger. His legs kicked up higher than his head and they both took off.
I made a rookie mistake and watched both deer. It is amazing to see what they do when spooked. I immediately called Mister whose first words out of his mouth were "did you get him?". What came out of my mouth was YeahhekickedrealhighandIthinkitisa6pointnoa7pointbutitcouldbean8pointandtheprimerdidn't
gooffandsoIhadtoputanewoneonImadeagoodshottheywerefightingandheisagoodbuckthey
snuckuponmehe'sareallygoodbuck. Which was a run-on sentence that is said in one breath and actually comes out to be - Yeah he kicked real high and I think it is a 6 point no a 7 point but it could be an 8 point and the primer didn't go off and so I had to put a new one on I made a good shot they were fighting and he is a good buck they snuck up on me he's a really good buck.
Keep in mind I was shaking like a leaf from the adrenaline that was pumping at that time. Mister got down out of his stand and came over to mine which is 200 yards from mine. As he was walking over the small buck came back! He walked back and forth in front of us for 10 minutes, never getting spooked. We talked while he was there since Mister was 15 yards behind me and once he left Mister came over to my stand. I got down and we started looking for blood knowing that we didn't have long. I made the shot at 6:28 pm. We couldn't find any blood and I was getting worried. I kept telling him, "I made a good shot and I saw him kick his legs up. I know I hit him". We had his grandfather with us who can be a bit impatient so we went to pick him up and brought him back to help us look. It was dark by this time and I was worried. I crawled back up in my tree stand and told them about where I shot him.
Before I even started to get out of my stand I heard Mister say that he had found blood. We kept looking, putting a flashlight where the last spot of blood was, tracking him. We actually found very little blood. Any blood that we saw was a little bit bigger than the top of a pencil eraser. Grandpa made a big loop around and didn't see anything. He thought that I was too worked up after the primer and hadn't made a good shot. Mister was bound and determined to find him though. He made the same loop that Grandpa did and just about missed my buck also. He was laying up against a tree and looked like a log! Mister called me over and we drug him out of the woods.
He was an 8 point buck that field dressed at 140 lbs. He was beautiful and we decided to get him mounted. This is the first deer that either of us has thought was big enough to be mounted. It is also the largest deer that either of us has shot. We put the time on the tag and took it to show a few people. The rack is around 120 inches, which is not a bad deer at all!
I kept trying to check it in but couldn't. Oklahoma now has a program where you can check your deer in online. We did that with Mister's deer the weekend before and I tried to with mine. I though that maybe I was just having issues with the phone so when we got home Mister got everything together and started to process the deer, while I tried to check him in online. I still was unable to check him in. Mister called one game warden that we know and got his voicemail and we left a message explaining that we couldn't check the deer in. He called another one and got his voicemail, explained the situation again and then we called his home number. No answer on that line either, but we did get a phone call from the 2nd game warden within 2 minutes and I learned all sorts of information. You have 24 hours to check the deer in, the game wardens are very nice and helpful and when you screw it up the next day checking it in they are really nice in OKC.
We got him skinned and cut up at about midnight. We took care getting the cape skinned off of him and throwing it in the fridge to take to the taxidermist tomorrow. The quarters are cooling out in the freezer. I am still on cloud nine from the buck that I worked to get, held myself in check to get and who was fighting to keep his territory. It also isn't a bad thing that I shot a bigger deer than Mister and get to put the first mount on the wall!
The picture to the left is the left side of the stand. The picture on the right is the front/right side of the stand. I can sit on either side and face west or the east. It makes this stand very versatile and a wonderful stand to be in. 
