My leased whitetail hunting preserve in NE OK consists of open prairie, with the tops of the rolling hills being about the only woods around. The trophy deer that I am hunting travel about a mile in the evening and cross over into public land. The public land is leased to farms and in most years is planted in soy beans. Since it is a WMA (Wildlife Management Area) the farms are required to leave strips of unharvested beans. In the pre-dawn the deer make the journey back to the protection of private land. The lease is bow only and is very low pressure. Therefore, we see lots of whitetail trophy deer and lots of rut activity come November on throughout December. 

In 2004 I was chasing a very nice 8pt that  I had seen several times in the prairie pursuing does. It was mid November and one Saturday morning I watched this trophy buck walk up a trail into a wooded hill top to bed down. That afternoon I quietly hung a stand in hopes of ambushing him the next morning. A few weeks earlier I had bought a new forked arrow rest as they were the new rage of arrow rests. When sighting in my bow I noticed that the sound of my arrow sliding on prongs was very noticeable. I asked my longtime friend and hunting partner to listen as I pulled it back. He stated that his did it as well, but didn’t think deer would hear it as he had already harvested a deer and his didn’t bother the deer. I agreed. 

Sunday morning came and luckily there was very light South wind which was needed to hunt my new stand placement. Sure enough, as the sun started coming up over the prairie grass I could see a buck making its way toward me. The deer were in the prairie early to escape the mass of gun hunters on the public ground. It was the wide 8pt trophy deer I had been hunting. He was still four or five hundred hundred yards away and began chasing does back and forth. After he realized the girls were not yet interested in him he started in the same direction he traveled the day before. 

It is really cool to watch these deer from so far away, but it also gives you time to think about everything and in turn the nerves start acting up. As had happened many times before, my left leg began to shake. I was doing all I could to get my leg under control as this big 8 worked his way to me. When he reached 30 yards I began to draw my bow to start settling in for what would surely be a 15 yard shot. The sound of the aluminum arrow drawn back against the metal prongs of the rest was a long metallic rasp of noise that sounded way too loud now that I was in the quiet woods. The buck stopped dead in his tracks and looked straight up into the tree. Although he probably did not see me, he knew something was up. He took a couple of steps backwards and wheeled and jogged off. I was deflated. 

I work at a large telecom and one of my coworkers is a whitetail deer hunter also. Although he does not get out very often with the bow, he really enjoys it. I invited him up in hopes that he would get a shot at nice fat doe. We headed up to the lease early early Saturday morning and I put him up in one of my favorite stands. After walking him to his tree I went back to the tree that I had the encounter with my big 8 trophy buck. He was there again! As the sun came up I could see the big 8 chasing does again in the prairie. Once again, he was slowly but surely making his way my direction. Just like last weekend, he lost interest in the ladies as they would not let him within 10 feet of them. He was on a bee line for me and my nerves started setting in again. Only this time, he veered left and away from me. Again, my heart sank as I knew he was not heading down the trail that leads to me. 

He was making his way up a large cone shaped hill in the middle of the prairie. This feature in the landscape is known as Indian woman’s breast (which is a nice way of stating the real name) by the deer hunting ranch hands. He walked almost to the very top and laid down amongst some large rocks. I had seen big trophy bucks do this before in the past and I guess they feel safe since they can see about a mile around them except for the other side of the hill. The trophy buck was laying on the South side of the hill and with a South wind it made a stalk very possible. With the buck about 400 yards away due south and up the hill I slowly eased out of my tree and slipped into the woods undetected.

I walked over to get my buddy from work and help him retrieve his doe. Unfortunately, he had missed, and was quite disappointed in himself. I was at least happy that he got the opportunity at a deer. I told him about the buck and where he had bedded down. Then I gave him the plan: 

I was going to walk up the back side of the hill and get within 15 yards of the deer. This would be a fairly easy stalk as he was laying on the down side of a very large rock that I could use to keep between myself and the deer’s eyes. Scott was to walk slowly around the hill and in plain sight of the deer. My hope was that once he saw Scott at 300 yards away he would stand and I would get a perfect shot at him while his attention was focused on Scott and not me. Scott knew that this was the buck that I have been after this whole hunting season and was excited to take part in helping me harvesting him.

I eased up the side of the hill and got into position. Unbeknownst to me, my long time friend and hunting buddy had been wondering why we had not yet made it back to camp and he had driven out to the prairie and was watching the following events through his binoculars from his truck. He said that he could see me crouched on the tip of the big barren hill with my bow and he knew I was on a big bedded trophy buck. 

I waved at Scott to let him know that he could start walking. I stood there with bow ready waiting for the deer to pop up. I waited and I waited. I started to wonder what is taking so long. All of a sudden I hear a loud SMACK and my buck pops up in a dead sprint and runs off. I stood up and drew my bow but there was no hope to get a shot. I ran over and asked Scott what happened.

“I got to within 30 yards so I shot at him in his bed,” he said. 

Oh I was livid! My blood started boiling and I honestly thought that only one of us was going to walk off that hill. I started speaking to him in an elevated voice telling him that he knew that was my buck. Blah Blah Blah…. I was not happy. My hunting buddy watching from the truck said he was worried he was going to have to rush over and intervene. All he could see was my arms waving wildly, me starting to walk away and then turning back and giving Scott some more what for! He knew something had gone very wrong.

After a few minutes I settled down and apologized. I knew this was not something to lose our friendship over and it turned into a joke. At least I tried to make it seem that way. Luckily, he missed and his arrow shattered on the rocks. But, a big trophy buck like that typically does not stick around after hearing an arrow being drawn back and week later being shot at and I was really worried that the buck might leave the county.

Thanksgiving week was coming up and I always take two or three days off as this is the best time for the rut in NE OK. Although I was after the big 8, I was also seeing some other nice whitetail deer and knew that I still had a good chance at harvesting a good buck come gun season. During gun season the deer exit the public land earlier than normal and in greater numbers to get away from the mass of gun hunters than line the country road hoping to see a buck that just happened to eat on the beans a little too long. 

I hopped in a different stand from the previous weekend, but it was the same principle. About half the deer will exit the prairie and slip into the wooded hill tops to bed down. The other half will stay in the knee high grass and bed in the wide open. 

As the sun rose on Nov 22nd I could see about 15 whitetail deer and all of them were about 800 yards away. A few gun shots had rattled off from public, but for the most part it was quiet. I could see a 3 deer were chasing the others around and knew they were bucks. As dawn grew into daylight I could start to pick up antlers through my Zeiss binoculars. It was him. He is still running around with the ladies. He chased them and chased them all morning long. About 8:30, three does made their way to me and he did not follow. He was still out in the middle of the prairie with four other does. Having now fixed my new rest with mole skin, I drew back on the last doe and made a perfect twelve yard shot. I was hunting on the south side of pretty good incline and I was excited when the doe headed up hill when I shot her. She almost made it to the top when she tipped over and expired. This was good news. That was in the direction of the truck and I would be able to pull my truck to within sixty or seventy yards of her and make for a short drag. 

By now, it was now 9:15 and my big 8pt trophy deer I was hunting was still 700 yards away and playing with a few girls. I knew I had some work to do with my doe before I could head back to camp and eat. I got down, got my truck pulled close to the edge before it dropped off into the prairie. As I got out of the truck I thought to myself that I should go look in the prairie and see what the big 8 was up to. I figured he would bed down out there with the ladies and I would have to try for him another day. I walked to the edge and sure enough, he was still chasing. It didn’t take 5 minutes, however, and the doe he was chasing bedded down and I guess he wasn’t through looking. I couldn’t believe it, he was headed my way. 

I ran back to my truck, put my release back on, grabbed my bow and ran to the edge again. He was walking, but coming fast. I had to move about 80 yards to the north to get in the general direction he was coming. He disappeared below me as he started up the steep hill and moved in behind a rock that protruded out of the ground to about thigh high. I sat down, got an arrow out and waited to see where he popped up. I started to see his antlers bobbing up through the grass as he made his way up the hill. I readied for the possible shot, but I still didn’t know if was going to come in close enough. He was not coming right at me but at a slight going away angle. He reached the crest of the hill and looked my direction. The light south wind was pushing my scent his direction, but he had not reached it yet. I estimated that he was 45 yards away. I felt good to 40 and made the decision to go ahead with the shot since the wind was light. 

After stopping and looking my direction he turned his head to look the other direction as if looking both ways before crossing a street. When he did that I moved to my knees and drew back. This was all happening pretty quick and I didn’t have time to think about nerves, so I was calm. I settled the pin a little high and released the 100gr Thunderhead. 

HACK! I immediately noticed that the shot was not perfect. It was high and a little back. It was not guts, but it was not a double lung. The buck wheeled around and sped of in a full sprint down the hill and started up another bare hill. After making it about 200 yards he came to a screeching halt and whirled around to face whatever had stung him. We stared at each other for about 5 seconds and all kind of thoughts were running through my head. I thought I had just wounded one of my better bucks and all this history we have with him. I can’t believe I just….. The bucks legs weakened suddenly and PLOP, he fell over dead. I had cut one of the major arteries under his spine right about the last rib. I jumped in the air with a big YES! I hurried back to my truck to retrieve my doe and head back to camp. My best friend and hunting buddy was in camp also and we went together to track my buck in the tall prairie grass. I was ecstatic to get this buck on the ground after so many highs and lows. We got him loaded into the truck beside the doe and headed home. The wide racked 8pt trophy buck is absolutely beautiful on my wall.