Home Turf Advantage: Waiting for the Right Shot Opportunity

The mature doe browsing some 30 yards away suddenly raises her head to stare back down the well-tracked deer trail on my southern Indiana farm. Following her gaze, I watch as an impressive, big-antlered whitetail materializes in the evening shadows and finally steps into the open. It’s him! The very same hefty, tall-tined Hoosier whitetail I’ve patiently watched reach maturity over the past three years, frequently passing up gimme shots to let him live and breed and physically transform into a fine Midwestern buck most any bowhunter would be happy to tag.

Truthfully, during several past encounters I’d been sorely tempted to release a late-season arrow; however, I finally let down from full draw or simply watched him and the doe he was courting walk away. Why pass up such shots? Because having that rutting buck’s impressive genes being spread among our farm’s resident whitetail does was more important to me than adding another set of oversized antlers to myalready crowded Memory Room wall.

Besides, 60-plus years had passed since I arrowed my first record-class Hoosier buck as a 22-year-old, greenhorn archer on the final day of the 1963 season. The site of that life-altering event took place only 30-some miles as the crow flies from where my wife and I now live on our rural retirement property in the rolling, wooded, hardwood hills of Perry County, Indiana. Also, during my 35 active years spent serving as Bowhunter Editor and Founder, I had ample opportunities to successfully bowhunt most of North America’s big-game species, including deer, elk, moose, pronghorns, caribou, free-ranging bison, mountain sheep and goats, bears and mountain lions, collecting numerous Pope and Young entries in each species. Still, during those adventurous years and far-ranging bowhunts, my all-time favorite animal had remained the common and ubiquitous whitetail deer.

Some longtime Bowhunter fans may recall my 2009 feature, No Place Like Home, written about the first deer I took back in Hoosierland after spending a decade and a half living in northwestern Montana’s scenic Flathead Valley. That Indiana buck was a healthy 10-pointer I tagged in 2008 from a portable treestand I’d hung in a tall white oak overlooking a hidden pond near the rear of our property. Then, only a couple years later, a nice 8-pointer came along while I was still-hunting the rut with both lugged boot soles on the leaf-littered ground. Fortunately, that rutty Romeo was paying more attention to the doe he was trailing than me crouching not 35 yards away. I watched him go down seconds after my arrow struck. Following that year’s home-turf success, the following season I sat in a pop-up ground blind and eventually scored on a big 8-pointer feeding past at only 22 yards. Yet another good 8-pointer fell to a similar ground-blind setup a year later.

Later still, in 2020, using a custom-made recurve bow that had been owned by my late, longtime friend, Montana bowhunter Dr. Chuck Williams, I shot yet another big 8 from ground level and dedicated that memorial hunt to my very special hunting buddy. After speaking at Chuck’s funeral in Kalispell, Mont., I’d been handed Chuck’s favorite bow, a Bears Paw recurve crafted by Big Sky Country bowyer Neil Jacobson. The Williams family — Karen, Chris and Jenny — then asked me to hunt deer with it and dedicate that hunt to Chuck. My feature article, One Last Hunt with Dr. Chuck, appeared in Bowhunter’s October 2021 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition.

Biding My Time

The big, old buck I mentioned at the outset showed up earlier in 2023 than in previous autumns, arriving well before his antler velvet dried in September, only to be stripped away later in the month. The truth is, few if any of the area’s mature bucks spend the full year on our farm. Yet, many does, their fawns and juvenile bucks are a common sight throughout the spring and summer months here in the Cattail Valley. And while the big boys faithfully turn up to chase local does during each annual rut, their whereabouts during the off-season remain mostly a mystery. Yet, glancing at an aerial map of this sparsely populated chunk of southern Indiana offers obvious clues. Vast woodlands, scattered farms with their corn and soybean fields, and relatively few towns of any size are found along I-64 between Louisville, Ky. and Evansville, Ind. This area is, in truth, the ideal habitat for whitetails.

The final week of the 2022 season had arrived before the last time I caught sight of the big 10-point whitetail. He was dogging a mature doe through a grove of towering white oaks near the hidden pond — one of our farm’s two dependable, year-round water sources for wildlife — located near the northeastern property line. I’d been still-hunting along an old logging road when movements in a greenbrier thicket to my left snagged my attention. A big doe had just stepped into a natural shooting lane some 35 yards away. She briefly glanced my direction before walking ahead. Scant seconds later, the handsome buck followed without once taking his eyes off his lady friend.

Although I briefly considered easing an arrow from my quiver and loudly voice-grunting to stop him for a possible shot, I remained silent and unmoving for two reasons. First, if he impregnated that doe, it’d be yet another genetic boost to our resident whitetail herd. Second, since I’ve grown older, I prefer close-range shots at stationary, relaxed and distracted deer. Turned out that chance encounter was my last of the 2022 season, and I had no real regrets. But it would be a full year before my next opportunity to release an arrow at the big-antlered buck on the day after Thanksgiving 2023.

Memories Old & New

The big-racked buck and a coy doe are standing frozen in place, maybe 30 yards apart, staring at each other for what seems like mini-eternity. Finally, the doe turns and begins walking away to my right. Her impressive suitor steps ahead, slowly following. I ease to one knee without tearing my eyes from him. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get the chance I’d been dreaming of for the past two years.

The doe crosses the weedy clearing not 30 yards away. The buck purposefully angles closer still, not taking his eyes from his potential girlfriend. I’d nocked an arrow upon first glimpsing the buck, and now I intentionally avoid staring at his oversized antlers as the scene unfolds. Naturally, my heart rate had kicked up a notch or two while I anticipated getting a lethal, close-range, broadside or slightly quartering-away shot.

Two years ago, I’d made a deadly shot from a ground blind placed near the well-tracked deer trail not far from where I now kneel. That arrow’s honed broadhead had sliced through a broadside 8-pointer’s chest at 18 yards, and I’d seen that buck stumble and drop, kicking in the dead leaves not 50 yards uphill from my current location. Don’t you just love it when there’s no need to follow a blood trail to a buck you’ve just arrowed?

Now, my full focus is on the buck quartering past maybe 20 yards away, perhaps 40 yards behind the doe he’s trailing. Finally, after he’d passed by me with his gaze still riveted on the doe, I ease to full draw and concentrate on his ribs, where I will let my arrow fly. And when the doe stops walking and turns to stare back his way, I release.

My shaft’s red and yellow fletching disappears into his ribs and angles through his thick chest. He leaps, bucks and bounds, tail tucked, past the puzzled doe. Then, just before disappearing, he slows to an unsteady walk, a sure sign my honed broadhead is doing its lethal job. Short moments later, I find him lying just beyond the last place I’d seen him, maybe 80 yards from where my arrow zipped through his vitals.

Kneeling in the frost-curled oak leaf litter beside the biggest buck I’ve tagged on our scenic and game-rich farm, I stroke his swollen neck, admiring his handsome headgear and sending a prayer of gratitude to the Good Lord for blessing me with a very special early 83rd birthday gift. Now, I can’t wait to see what nature holds in store for 2024, when I turn 84 years young.

Author’s Note

My 2023 buck was at least 7 years old and had 15 scorable points of an inch or more. His headgear had declined notably since the 2022 season, when he was a mainframe 10-pointer with several non-typical tines and burr points. Although his right side had lost both mass and tine length, the antlers remain impressive. While I’ve been an official Pope and Young Club measurer since the 1970s, I’ve not yet taped the rack or arranged to enter any of my recent Indiana bucks into the bowhunting records. Why? Each deer I shoot in the winter of my lengthy bowhunting career makes my personal record book, and these days that’s what matters most to me.

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