Y'all know I like telling stories, and I've got one to tell you.
Life and the responsibilities associated with it have kept me from the woods and water far too much lately. I've not had an opportunity to go check on some of my favorite backwoods haunts to see how the acorn crop looks. I've relied on what different people have told me they've found, but haven't personally laid eyes on anything.
There's a high mountain gap nestled between 4200ft tops that, when the acorns hit in this area, every critter for miles around will come visit. I first hunted it in 2011 and killed a unique 8pt with my bow with a 54 yard heart shot. Some of you that have been here a while might remember the story. (Click here if you want to read it)
Anyway, I made up my mind that the conditions this year might have led to a bumper crop of white oak acorns up in this gap and the only way is to go see first hand. So I packed my pack and loaded my bow and got to walking. It's 3 miles in, no ifs ands or buts, and it's uphill the entire way. I think the absolute quickest I can walk it is an hour and a half, and with these late September temps climbing way too high into the 80s, it's a bugger of a hike. After several stops to catch my breath, I finally topped out into the area I like to hunt. I could see no sign of bears lapping the trees, but I did see feeding sign on the ground and several freshly dug yellowjacket nests. I slowly, and as silently as possible in the parched dry leaves, made my way to the top of a white oak ridge. I knelt on the ground and dug into my pack for a fresh muffin my wife had packed for me. Washing it down with the first of many sips of water that day, I unslung my bow and began to stalk. Within a few steps, I heard limbs popping and realized that there was a bear feeding no more than 75 yards away. He was just over the ridge and out of sight from my position, but I could tell he was moving up the ridge. I checked the wind and realized that he would soon be downwind of me, so I kept moving, trying to close distance with him and keep ahead of the wind. All this was very difficult with the leaves as dry and crunchy as they are, but like all the other mountain men, I'm part Cherokee so I'm pretty quiet in the woods. Try as I might, the bear was moving faster than I could move and remain quiet and he eventually got dead downwind from me I heard him stop in a laurel thicket and not move. I didn't move either. Though neither of us could see the other, we had a Mexican standoff for about 5 minutes until I heard him turn and walk the other way. Not spooked, not running, just moving off. This leads me to believe he might have been a big boar, not really afraid of me, but cautious.
After he walked out of hearing, I returned to the ridge top to listen. Not 2 minutes had passed when I heard something else down the ridge below me. Brush was waist high and visibility wasn't the greatest, but I could see a sapling getting absolutely thrashed. I couldn't see the deer, but I knew what was going on. While this buck was rubbing the sapling, I closed the distance a little, selecting a spot that gave me good visibility, quiet footing, and a potential spot to shoot from. As the deer fed up the ridge below me, I could occasionally catch glimpses of brown, but never saw the head. Through one little opening in the brush, I saw forks on his left side and nothing more. I made up my mind that if given the opportunity, I would try to take him. I noted the direction of his travel and ranged a tree down the mountain from me at 28 yards. I set my pin for 30 and as I saw his back passing behind the tree, I knelt to knock an arrow. When I started to rise back up, I froze. Looking at me was the biggest buck I've ever seen in Georgia. He was massive. Antlers well outside his ears and very tall tines, with shredded velvet hanging off freshly exposed bone. It's an image I hope to never forget.
I froze in a half crouch while he looked at me. My head was barely above the brush and I knew if I knelt down or rose up, he would bolt. I held this extremely uncomfortable position for what seemed an eternity but was actually maybe half a minute. Then he lowered his head and began to feed again. In one motion, I stood and drew my bow on the trophy of a lifetime.
I settled the pin on his rib cage and released the arrow, only to watch him bolt and give me the distinct impression that I hit him very far back. He ran straight way from me and I watched those massive antlers bound out of sight. He stopped running after only 40 yards or so and stopped to listen. I didn't move. He didn't move. I couldn't see him and he couldn't see me and after a couple minutes, I heard him bolt and run down the mountain. By now, I was shaking, replaying the shot in my mind. He was in shadow with sunlight before and behind. I couldn't be sure where I hit him. I slipped down to where he had been and found the freshly disturbed soil where he had bolted. No blood, no arrow. I only went a few feet following his tracks when I found blood. Encouraged, I followed the blood down to where he stood in the road. This is what I saw:
He had stood still, listening for me and was bleeding out both sides, so I got a complete passthrough. It wasn't lung blood, it wasn't liver blood, and there was no odor of a gut shot. I think it was a muscle shot in one or both of his hams. I can't explain it. He was standing virtually broadside at about 30 yards. He was standing in shadow, so the actual impact of the arrow was hidden from me.
I tracked him a total of about 80 yards, never seeing good blood. After getting very sparse, it finally disappeared after a single spot of blood on a dried yellow fern. I backed out and called a man with a tracking dog. I've never needed or used a tracking dog, but this was a trophy of a lifetime, so I was going to give it a try. That meant walking back out, meeting him and walking back in. So I did. I walked the 3 miles back to the truck and drove to town to meet up with the tracker. It was 3:30 in the afternoon before we got back to the blood trail, and by then, it was dry as a bone. The dog followed the trail to where I ended, and continued on an invisible trail to a branch where he zigged and zagged and eventually lost the trail. We covered both sides of the branch, upstream and downstream and all spaces in between and never picked up any sign of the buck. We were left with a very sparse blood trail and no sign over a very large area and this led me to believe that it was a non-lethal hit that avoided any organs or major arteries. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
When we decided to call off the search, I headed out of the branch and back up to the old logging road we had started in. What should have taken me 5 minutes took more like 20. My legs just didn't want to work. Every uphill step caused a knot in my right quadricep to ball up and cramp. I had drunk 2 liters of water and a Gatorade since morning, but in the 80 degree temps, I had pushed my body to the point of muscle failure. This is not a place to have a physical breakdown. Fortunately, every step for the next 3 miles would be downhill. 6 trail miles, all downhill had worn a blister on my little toe that was bleeding when I got home. The pedometer on my phone recorded 13 miles of travel that day. The next 2 days felt like I had maxed out on leg day in the gym. I had lost 6 pounds when I got home that night.
That's 4 times I've ever hunted that gap, and on two of those, I've shot mature bucks. I like those chances.
Life and the responsibilities associated with it have kept me from the woods and water far too much lately. I've not had an opportunity to go check on some of my favorite backwoods haunts to see how the acorn crop looks. I've relied on what different people have told me they've found, but haven't personally laid eyes on anything.
There's a high mountain gap nestled between 4200ft tops that, when the acorns hit in this area, every critter for miles around will come visit. I first hunted it in 2011 and killed a unique 8pt with my bow with a 54 yard heart shot. Some of you that have been here a while might remember the story. (Click here if you want to read it)
Anyway, I made up my mind that the conditions this year might have led to a bumper crop of white oak acorns up in this gap and the only way is to go see first hand. So I packed my pack and loaded my bow and got to walking. It's 3 miles in, no ifs ands or buts, and it's uphill the entire way. I think the absolute quickest I can walk it is an hour and a half, and with these late September temps climbing way too high into the 80s, it's a bugger of a hike. After several stops to catch my breath, I finally topped out into the area I like to hunt. I could see no sign of bears lapping the trees, but I did see feeding sign on the ground and several freshly dug yellowjacket nests. I slowly, and as silently as possible in the parched dry leaves, made my way to the top of a white oak ridge. I knelt on the ground and dug into my pack for a fresh muffin my wife had packed for me. Washing it down with the first of many sips of water that day, I unslung my bow and began to stalk. Within a few steps, I heard limbs popping and realized that there was a bear feeding no more than 75 yards away. He was just over the ridge and out of sight from my position, but I could tell he was moving up the ridge. I checked the wind and realized that he would soon be downwind of me, so I kept moving, trying to close distance with him and keep ahead of the wind. All this was very difficult with the leaves as dry and crunchy as they are, but like all the other mountain men, I'm part Cherokee so I'm pretty quiet in the woods. Try as I might, the bear was moving faster than I could move and remain quiet and he eventually got dead downwind from me I heard him stop in a laurel thicket and not move. I didn't move either. Though neither of us could see the other, we had a Mexican standoff for about 5 minutes until I heard him turn and walk the other way. Not spooked, not running, just moving off. This leads me to believe he might have been a big boar, not really afraid of me, but cautious.
After he walked out of hearing, I returned to the ridge top to listen. Not 2 minutes had passed when I heard something else down the ridge below me. Brush was waist high and visibility wasn't the greatest, but I could see a sapling getting absolutely thrashed. I couldn't see the deer, but I knew what was going on. While this buck was rubbing the sapling, I closed the distance a little, selecting a spot that gave me good visibility, quiet footing, and a potential spot to shoot from. As the deer fed up the ridge below me, I could occasionally catch glimpses of brown, but never saw the head. Through one little opening in the brush, I saw forks on his left side and nothing more. I made up my mind that if given the opportunity, I would try to take him. I noted the direction of his travel and ranged a tree down the mountain from me at 28 yards. I set my pin for 30 and as I saw his back passing behind the tree, I knelt to knock an arrow. When I started to rise back up, I froze. Looking at me was the biggest buck I've ever seen in Georgia. He was massive. Antlers well outside his ears and very tall tines, with shredded velvet hanging off freshly exposed bone. It's an image I hope to never forget.
I froze in a half crouch while he looked at me. My head was barely above the brush and I knew if I knelt down or rose up, he would bolt. I held this extremely uncomfortable position for what seemed an eternity but was actually maybe half a minute. Then he lowered his head and began to feed again. In one motion, I stood and drew my bow on the trophy of a lifetime.
I settled the pin on his rib cage and released the arrow, only to watch him bolt and give me the distinct impression that I hit him very far back. He ran straight way from me and I watched those massive antlers bound out of sight. He stopped running after only 40 yards or so and stopped to listen. I didn't move. He didn't move. I couldn't see him and he couldn't see me and after a couple minutes, I heard him bolt and run down the mountain. By now, I was shaking, replaying the shot in my mind. He was in shadow with sunlight before and behind. I couldn't be sure where I hit him. I slipped down to where he had been and found the freshly disturbed soil where he had bolted. No blood, no arrow. I only went a few feet following his tracks when I found blood. Encouraged, I followed the blood down to where he stood in the road. This is what I saw:
He had stood still, listening for me and was bleeding out both sides, so I got a complete passthrough. It wasn't lung blood, it wasn't liver blood, and there was no odor of a gut shot. I think it was a muscle shot in one or both of his hams. I can't explain it. He was standing virtually broadside at about 30 yards. He was standing in shadow, so the actual impact of the arrow was hidden from me.
I tracked him a total of about 80 yards, never seeing good blood. After getting very sparse, it finally disappeared after a single spot of blood on a dried yellow fern. I backed out and called a man with a tracking dog. I've never needed or used a tracking dog, but this was a trophy of a lifetime, so I was going to give it a try. That meant walking back out, meeting him and walking back in. So I did. I walked the 3 miles back to the truck and drove to town to meet up with the tracker. It was 3:30 in the afternoon before we got back to the blood trail, and by then, it was dry as a bone. The dog followed the trail to where I ended, and continued on an invisible trail to a branch where he zigged and zagged and eventually lost the trail. We covered both sides of the branch, upstream and downstream and all spaces in between and never picked up any sign of the buck. We were left with a very sparse blood trail and no sign over a very large area and this led me to believe that it was a non-lethal hit that avoided any organs or major arteries. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
When we decided to call off the search, I headed out of the branch and back up to the old logging road we had started in. What should have taken me 5 minutes took more like 20. My legs just didn't want to work. Every uphill step caused a knot in my right quadricep to ball up and cramp. I had drunk 2 liters of water and a Gatorade since morning, but in the 80 degree temps, I had pushed my body to the point of muscle failure. This is not a place to have a physical breakdown. Fortunately, every step for the next 3 miles would be downhill. 6 trail miles, all downhill had worn a blister on my little toe that was bleeding when I got home. The pedometer on my phone recorded 13 miles of travel that day. The next 2 days felt like I had maxed out on leg day in the gym. I had lost 6 pounds when I got home that night.
That's 4 times I've ever hunted that gap, and on two of those, I've shot mature bucks. I like those chances.
