I was hunting Thursday morning in the beautful mountains of WV in Randolph County. It was a coll 38 deg morning. I was sitting up near the top of a ridge. I had a logging road behind we that turned a sharp left and dropped downhill to my right.

About 50 yards down the hill after the left turn a heavy trail crossed the logging road and went in front of me about 15 yards below me. It went for about 25 yards then angled about 45 deg back up the hill to the logging road again.

At about 9:20 I was sitting on my stool in the middle of a deadfall waiting for something to come slipping through the woods. The wind was hitting me in the back of the head, so I was expecting the deer to be travelling left/right or right left, or up the hill.

I had my bow hanging on a screw-in tree hanger just to my left with a Magnus Stinger 125 gr BH on a 29" BOP Carbonwood V-Maxx 3000 arrow nocked onto my Bill Stewart Multicam T/D Recurve.

I looked to my right and up hill slightly and detected some motion. I reached over and took the bow off of the hanger and then tried moving slowly to the right to get into position for the shot. At that time the deer lifted its head and looked straight at me. I saw nothing but horns.

I stared down at the ground and refused to make eye contact with it, although I did look at it out of the corner of my eye to see if it was going to move. It started moving downhill again and when its head went behind a large oak tree about 5 yards to my right that was wider than me, I stood up.

The buck must have heard me because it stopped again. It stood there for the longest time and I expected it to turn and walk into the woods straight away from me. But, it soon started meandering down the logging road again and I waited for it to get into a shooting lane.

When it got to one, it stopped with its vitals exposed broadside and maybe a bit quartering away. The deer was so big, around 225#, that I misestimated the yardage to it as 25 yards. I came to fulldraw and focused on the point I knew I needed to aim at for a good killzone hit at that distance.

The arrow went just under his chest and directly under the point I was aiming at for a double lung shot. This time he did run up into the woods across from the logging road. Stood up there for awhile, and then ran down to the logging road where it turned to the right and just above a ravine. The deer stopped in logging road and looked back my direction.

My son was in a treestand about 50 yards or so from where the deer was standing. He was able to see the big swayed back, large belly, 10 typical points and a few extra sticer points through his binoculars. But it was too far away for him to shoot.

It is the largest deer I have ever taken a shot at. When I went to retrieve my arrow, I paced it off as 32 yards to where the deer had been standing. My heart is still beating as I sit here Saturday evening typing about the opportunity I had. What a hunt! No deer harvested, but what a hunt!!

Bill