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19 Point Buck Of A Lifetime
Author: Josh Warman
I’ve hunted since I was 11 years old; in search of the so called “big buck” that everyone wants to shoot. Well, I had no idea that when I got up on the first morning of the first shotgun season here in Illinois that I would shoot the buck of a lifetime.
I started my day of hunting by getting woke up by cabin owner Mike Curtis. Mike owns the old Curtis Christmas tree farm in Oakland. He yelled up the stairs for me to wake up. I got up and went outside on the deck to see what the temperature was like. It was about 45 and a perfectly quiet morning. I then got dressed in full camouflage, enough to keep me warm. I then went downstairs to the kitchen table to meet my grandpa and Mike to eat a donut for breakfast before we went out. We decided where we were all going to go.
I decided I was going to the same stand that I have hunted for years. I had never shot a deer in this stand, but I was determined to. We all three then walked out of the cabin and up the driveway. We all walked to a point until we had to split and go our different ways. I walked slowly and quietly to my stand, not wanting to scare any deer away. I got to my stand and got into it like a snake. I then pulled my gun up and untied the rope. I loaded my gun and patiently waited for the sun to come up.
It seemed as if it was never going to get light. When it finally did get light, I started hearing shot after shot, but I wasn’t seeing any deer to shoot at. Then out of the corner my eye I saw a deer walking straight to me. It was a little four point buck. He got in front of my stand about 40 yards out and I took a shot.
He went running off like I hadn’t even hit him. I got down about ten minutes later and looked for a blood trail. I didn’t find any blood or hair. After searching long and hard, I got back up into the stand. Then about an hour later my grandpa called me on the radio and said that he was coming to see if we could find any blood from the deer. In a few minutes I could see him walking toward my stand. I got on the radio and told him to stop and wait where he was at, because I was watching a doe to see if she was going to walk toward me.
While I was watching this doe my grandpa went over to a ridge and looked over the hill to see if there were any deer. He stood there and waited for me to tell him to come over to my stand. While waiting, two deer came up out of the valley about 50 yards to his right. He shot at the buck and missed. The doe went running off and the buck came at a dead run to me. All I saw was a lot of antlers and a big body. I pulled up my gun and fired a shot. It missed. He was running fast so I gave him a little bit of a lead and fired again. It hit him right in the vitals. He took a nose dive to the ground. He was down I thought. I got on the radio and told my grandpa that I had shot a buck. I couldn’t see how big it was though because his head was behind a tree. I got down and walked up to the deer. I was amazed at all the points. It had 19 points. It was unique because it had the start of a second beam that was like a unicorn’s horn. It also had more mass to the antlers than I had ever seen before on a deer. He appeared to be in full rut, because his neck was huge. The deer turned out to be four years old. You could tell he was an old “war horse.” He had one eye that was infected. He also had a lot of gray hairs on his nose and face.
Mike came down with the tractor and we pulled it up the steep hill with the tractor and a pulley. We then took it back to the cabin and my dad was now there. He couldn’t believe that it was my deer. Grandpa and I loaded it into my truck and headed for the check station in Charleston, my hometown. We showed my mom and grandma. We then took it to the check station. After that we took it to the butcher. He caped it out. The next morning I went up to the butcher shop and picked up the head and cape. I then took it to the taxidermist who happens to be my uncle and his 17 year old son. They run Campbell’s Taxidermy. Now I am waiting to get the deer mount back from them. This has been an experience of a lifetime.
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