The rest of the story

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"It looks like a group of bucks chasing a doe," my brother Matt said. The tracks, crossing the county dirt road, were fresh and very encouraging. It was good sign that the rut was still going on, at least for now.

It was mid-November, and we had been doing some mid-morning scouting on our timber company lease near Bloomville. At the end of the dirt road, I turned onto the highway and started home. Glancing across a big un-cut beanfield, something caught my eye. I slowed down and turned into the farm road that skirted the field.

"Matt, what's that out in the field?' I asked. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "That's a bunch of bucks." We counted seven bucks standing in the beans at about 150 yards. Obviously, they were locked onto us as we had slowed down and turned into the field. I know the farmer and have permission to access his property, so I eased the truck on down the road, and three of the bucks ran to the nearby woods. Our woods! The other four just stood there staring at us!

We were amazed and excited to see all those deer out in the open, in the middle of the day! There had to be a hot doe nearby, but we didn't see her. We finally decided she must have been lying down in the beans, exhausted from being chased by that group of rut-crazed bucks.

When I put the truck in reverse and started backing out, one of the bucks turned and started to run toward the woods. The biggest buck, a huge eight-pointer, charged toward the fleeing buck with his antlers down! The buck changed directions, then went toward the woods and stopped. We figured that the fleeing buck had inadvertently run toward the doe, and the bigger buck had turned him away.

I told Matt that I thought we could have gotten out of the truck and walked toward those deer, and I don't think they would have run from us, unless the doe got up and ran. We backed on out and headed home.

Of the seven bucks, six were big enough to be "shooters" on our little still hunting club. Only one of the bucks was smaller, with four or five points. We practice a mild form of quality deer management and don't have thousands of acres of land to manage for trophy bucks, so we are practical and hold out for what we consider "good" bucks.

Matt couldn't go, but I headed back to our lease that afternoon. I signed out the stand that was nearest to the big beanfield, a tripod in the "honey hole." The wind was good for that stand, and I sat till dark but didn't see a single deer.

After a sleepless night, with visions of big bucks dancing through my head, I headed back to the woods the next morning before daylight. I decided that since I didn't see anything at the honey hole stand, I would try a stand across the county road where we had seen the tracks crossing the day before. Maybe those deer had crossed back over during the night. But the wind was wrong there, and I moved back to the honey hole stand after daylight.

That morning hunt unfolded as I described in "A day in November." The little doe that walked up to my stand at the honey hole ran straight back down the food plot retracing her trail when I shot at the big seven. I guess it left those bucks thinking she was still there in the vicinity of the stand. They were so intent on finding her that they paid little heed to my rifle shots that were missing the mark.

The big seven point was a fully mature deer, barrel chested, pot bellied and with flabby skin hanging under his neck. His horns were gnarly, heavy and massive. The eight-pointer was even bigger but slimmer, trimmer and probably younger. Either one would have been a real trophy.

To say my rifle was off would be an understatement. I had actually shot it a couple of days before, and it was "dead on" accurate. But somehow the scope got knocked off. Way off. I went to Matt's house later that day, where he had a target set up, and shot the target at 60 yards. I missed! It was off a foot and a half to the left and a foot and a half high. After a series of shots, I got it back on dead center.

My son Clayton asked me once if I added things or stretched the truth in my stories. I assured him that I did not, but I would sometimes leave something out, if it wasn't important and didn't help the story. Here, I didn't leave out very much, but I've added some "back story" that might help explain that November encounter.

So, like the radio personality Paul Harvey used to say - now you know the rest of the story.

Reach Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.