Our gun season in Oklahoma started last Saturday and I took a gorgeous 8 point dark chocolate colored buck on Sunday. I was looking for a 150 class 10 point we had on camera but when this chocolate buck appeared I couldn't resist since I'd always wanted one. This area is short grass sand hill country with no trees or brush. It's actually awesome quail country but there's usually a good deer or two using it in the mornings. There's no way to bow hunt it but it's relatively easy rifle hunting. I was hunting a railroad right of way on private land and the railroad had paid my landowner to dump hundreds of ties on my side of the fence in neat rows with grass growing between each tie. Well my buck came from behind me and noticed 3 does about 250 yards away past the railroad ties and he headed right into the middle of the ties and had to prance through them! He never would stop as he was a horn dog in love even with my whistles. But he had to zig zag and prance high so he wasn't going all that fast and finally paused long enough at a slight angle to let me take him. It's a weird location to shoot a buck but no one was hunting the spot and several good deer seem to use the area and I got lucky the does lured him out of hiding.

Well I looked down in the box blind and gathered my stuff and was putting it all back in my daypack when I happened to look out the window and caught some movement and thought the buck was still alive. I scoped him at 140 yards and saw a coyote within 10 feet from my buck! There must have been a den somewhere in the railroad ties and since my buck did a short sprint after I shot I guess the coyote saw him go down. I probably jerked the trigger because I made a clean miss and I saw the coyote go over 3 separate sand hills for 500 yards. I think he's still running!!

I'm back hunting with a bow now for several days and nothing came in range although there's lots of chasing with great deer seen every day. This is going to be tough to climb back into the contest but that's archery hunting.

Here's his picture.