As the sun was setting, we were slipping in the stand. We were getting in late, by anyone’s standards. But it was an opportunity to hunt, that we didn’t want to miss.
Emma was ahead of me on the ladder, as we were climbing in. She froze, and told me to hold still. There was a doe crossing a layout to the right of the stand. Once the doe made it into a head of hardwoods, we finished getting in the stand and settled in. Not long after sitting there, a doe came out pretty close to us, and headed out into a cut sorghum field.
About 20 minutes after sunset, a group of does came out in the far back left corner of the field. All you could see was their heads and necks, in the cut sorghum field. Shortly after they made their way out into the field a little piece. I was scanning that far back field edge, where all the does had come out. And BAM! There he was, standing tall at the field edge. He was looking out into the field, where the does were. The buck was too far to shoot where he was, not to mention we could only see his head. But the stage was set. The does were working their way to us, and he was following right behind. We were losing light fast, as they were working their way to us. About 35 minutes after sunset, he had cut the distance. Emma had been following him in the scope all the way from the other side of the field. He had made it to good shooting range, but it was getting difficult to make him out, in the low light. He had been facing straight to us, the whole time. But he finally broke off, and turned broadside in a clearing. When he did, you could momentarily see his silhouette good. I knew that was our opportunity, but he was steady walking. Without saying a word, I made a loud grunting noise to stop the deer. Emma knew that was her cue, and when he stopped, her shot rang out!
With the low lighting and distance the deer was, we couldn’t tell any details about the deer before she shot. We just knew he was a nice buck, and there was definitely no ground shrinkage. He was 185 pound 9 point with 9” G2’s.
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