I haven't been shooting my bow enough this year to in good conscience fling an arrow at a deer. Nontheless, it is now through Nov. 12th when I get the chance to see the bruisers which inhabit the area. I opted to sit my stand Saturday evening with a digital camera. I set it on landscape hoping to avoid focusing on objects nearby. It wasn't long before I noticed an antler twist against the dark timber at the East end of the field. I found him with my binoculars, at 85 yards. He tilted his head back testing the wind then locked his ears in my direction. He smelled me. As I studied his antlers, it occured to me I might well be looking at the direct descendant of a deer I killed in 2001, a grandson perhaps. Same main frame. Same propensity for points. A kicker off the left G2, a fork in the right. This deer was a 5X4 with the fork and kicker making him an 11 pointer, at 3 1/2. His grandfather, perhaps, died carrying 22 points, multiple kickers off the right G2 and fork in the left...... of lead poisoning.
It took a while before I found the doe standing motionless ahead of him in the tall grass. She had no inkling of my presence. She finally moved in my direction then turned south re-entering the woods 50 yards East of me. He finally entered the field and made his way toward my position. The wind was strong and swirling. At 25 yards he locked up, catching another wiff of "Cameraman". After that long pause with which I am too familiar, he turned to go. When he cleared the sweetgum I snapped the first shot (photo). Then another, and another as he accelerated like he'd been swatted on the ass by a buggy whip, balancing that cage of bone on his head.
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Once he put what he thought was enough ground between us, he stopped again, at 70 yards. His grandfather (perhaps) had made the same decision, stopping at 85, a decision he didn't live to regret, as a 370 grain maxiball put him in the Book.
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I apologize for the lousy focus. I'd say I'll take some close ups when I have him on the ground, but I know from our brief encounter the odds of my killing this buck are a fraction of what they were before we met. He made what might well have been a fatal error and he knows it.
He did end up following the doe, passing East of me and dead downwind at 50 yds. Hope springs eternal.........