Thursday morning, sneak into my area and up in my tree, check my watch 6:30 still dark, going to be a great day, calm no wind"¦ I can smell the deer in the area. At about 7:05 I see a small doe stand up about 30 yards to my right. She appears to be alone, but keeps looking off away from me. 5 minutes go by and I see a large deer approaching in the direction she was looking, and he has a rack. He is coming right to her with his head low like a hound dog, nose to the ground. He runs right up to her and she quickly takes 2 or 3 hops to get distance between herself and him"¦ he chases her"¦ round they go like this for a couple of tries and then I guess he understands that she is not ready. So she is wandering off and he stops giving chase, but he does grunt a couple times"¦ so I figure I would grunt back and see if he would present a shot. At this time he was about 40 yards out, and no shot there with too many limbs and such between him and I. I wanted him closer to get a better look at his rack anyway"¦ remember it was still not too light"¦ just that cool dim light from the sun rising in the distance"¦ when everything has that gray cast to it. So anyway, I grunt a few times"¦ and I see him look around and begin to walk closer to me. He is still eating acorns and not really coming in to the grunt"¦ just kind of wandering"¦ I am looking at his right side, and thinking he may be a 10 pointer I can clearly make out 4 points to the right side"¦ and if there is a brow tine"¦ that would make 5 to that one side. Anyway"¦ he has a big body and what appears to be a heavy rack"¦ so I decide to take him if the shot presents itself. After a few more minutes of him eating acorns, he steps into a clear lane at a quartering away shot"¦ and I level my 25 yard pin on him, and let it fly"¦SMACK! There it is"¦ that mule kick that I love to see"¦ and off he runs. He went 40 yards and I hear him crash to the ground. He is just out of my sight, but very easy to find with a heavy blood trail and not too far to go. Now here is the strange thing"¦ I take him to be a very old buck"¦ his brow times are not at the usual place, they are up the main beam a ways, so the 10 I thought he might be was not true"¦ he had 4 to each side with 1 point broken off at about an inch"¦ but get this, he had only 4 teeth in his mouth"¦ 4 little bottom teeth in the front"¦ and absolutely no other teeth left in his mouth"¦ nothing but gums"¦ flat pink gums. Very strange! Any of you ever seen a almost toothless deer before? I am putting some pics up, but the site only lets me put one at a time.
scroll down for more pics.
DW
My Second Buck Down!
