Anticipation grew with each passing day for Ricky McCullough and his son Josh as they made regular trips to check their game camera throughout the summer and into the early fall.
As opening day of bow season neared, there was a heightened since of urgency. A trophy buck continued to visit their camera site on a regular basis. The father and son team had scouted the area thoroughly and located a core area that was home to several deer.
One outstanding buck was particularly interesting.
“We spotted the deer earlier in the summer, and I really wanted Dad to get him,” said Josh McCullough.
And that’s almost what happened as Ricky McCullough went to the woods on opening day and took a crack at the old buck.
“Dad tried him first, and sure enough he got a shot,” McCullough said. “But his arrow hit a limb and glanced slightly off track. The buck trotted off.
“Dad said the buck wasn’t alarmed, and went back to feeding a short distance away. You might only get one opportunity at a buck like that, and then it’s over.”
The following Sunday morning, Josh joined his dad in the woods, and took a seat about 20 feet up a tree before dawn. Not long after daylight, a doe crossed the trail where the hunters walked in, and snorted over and over.
McCullough wondered if his day was over, but had no choice but to wait and see.
Though the doe was about 75 to 80 yards away, McCullough could barely hear the snorts due to high winds. Time would tell what effect the snorting would have on deer in the surrounding area.
About an hour and a half later, around 8 a.m., McCullough spotted movement to his right slightly out in front. A glimpse of a buck’s antlers made his heart beat a bit quicker in anticipation of the deer’s appearance in the open.
Shortly thereafter, a small 4- or 6-point buck came into the clear, and McCullough relaxed a bit.
Staring intently in the small buck’s direction, McCullough caught sight of movement behind the first deer. In seconds “Big Daddy” stepped out into the opening, and stood stone still for a few minutes at a distance of 50 yards, just outside McCullough’s kill zone.
“I recognized the buck immediately because we’d been watching him all summer,” he said. “The buck moved from right to left staying about 50 yards out.”
The deer continued to move intermittingly as he stopped, watched a minute and then began walking again. Stop, look, listen and then walk again.
The old monarch had lived through many seasons, and was obviously on full alert.
The buck stopped in an old grown-up log-loading area, and was somewhat at ease. Finally, the trophy made his way across the opening, and stopped just short of the thicket.
Two more steps, and the buck would be in the safety of the thicket and gone, perhaps forever.
“I had lasered him at 45 yards, but probably shot the bank behind him,” said McCullough. “I put the 40-yard pin on him, and released just as he turned broadside.
“I felt good about my release, but the string hit the inside of my arm. The shot didn’t feel good, and I lost sight of the arrow.
“I thought I’d missed him, although the deer jumped like he’d been hit.”
With a feeling of dejection now settling in on him, McCullough rested a minute and texted a friend, telling him that he’d just missed the biggest deer of his life.
Inspection of the area where the deer stood yielded nothing, not even the arrow. McCullough turned and looked down a slight opening where the deer had run, and spotted his arrow about 10 yards away.
“I saw the arrow broken in half, and saw a lot of blood and got excited,” he said. “I decided to trail the blood to the edge of the thicket a short distance away, and then let the deer rest and go for help before bumping him.”
As he stopped at the edge of the thicket, McCullough detected another splash of blood.
Stopping a moment to survey the blood trail, McCullough looked up and spotted the buck laying motionless a mere 35 yards from the point of the initial Rage broadhead’s impact.
The buck was truly the trophy of a lifetime. It sported 18 points and scored 178 58, according to Wayne Bryant of Wayne’s Taxidermy.
Be the first to comment