![]() At that, I didn’t realize how good he really was.Ī deer trail crossed the fence where I was standing, but I was in the open. I knew I was looking at a dream trophy, a nontypical whitetail big enough to go well up on the record list, with antlers the like of which I could never hope to see again. They extended below his jaws, giving him an odd, lop-eared appearance. Strangest of all, he had two long prongs curving out and down on either side of his head between eye and ear. There were heavy, spraggly points, long and short, growing from the main beams in all directions. His rack was big and massive, and was the queerest, most deformed set of deer antlers I had ever looked at. Ready to move on, I saw a band of five or six whitetails break out of the timber and run straight for me. I had crossed a cornfield, on the watch for fresh sign, and had stopped at a fence to look over an adjoining alfalfa field and the timbered river bottoms beyond. I’m 36, took up bowhunting seven years ago, and have not used a gun for deer since. I was carrying a 57-pound bow and three arrows. I was hunting in my favorite area, on the farm of a friend, Dan Thomas, along the Platte River south of Shelton, Nebraska, 30 miles northwest of my home in Hastings where I worked as a salesman for a meat-packing house. Before I was through, I’d have a liberal education in the almost incredible wariness and stealth by which a big whitetail buck survives the hunting seasons. I didn’t guess then that I was taking on a five-year assignment and the most fascinating outdoor quest of my life. I’d hunt him until I hung that strange and magnificent rack on my wall, no matter how long it took, unless another hunter killed him first. THE FIRST TIME I saw the deer I made myself a promise. STOMP BRUSH PROThe antlers are now owned by Bass Pro Shops. The buck taped out at 284 5/8 inches (gross) with a net score of 277 3/8, according to the Boone and Crockett Club (although Pope and Young recorded them as 279 7/8). The buck remains the 25th largest nontypical whitetail of all time, the sixth largest nontypical whitetail ever taken by a bowhunter, and the second largest nontypical whitetail ever taken in Nebraska. This story, “A Five-Year Stalk,” originally ran in the August 1963 issue of Outdoor Life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |