The Buck and the Truck that Woke Me Up

This story is a story within another story about a giant buck named Tease who taught me a valuable lesson about priorities.

 

Meet Tease

 

I met Tease on a trail camera a few days before Thanksgiving, November 21, 2016.  He was the most magnificent buck I had ever seen on my farm.  I have been a bowhunter since I was 12 years old in 1977, but did not get serious until 2013 when I finally owned a piece of land.

 

I bought a farm 13 years ago.  Owning these 360 acres was a dream come true through God’s grace, hard work, and risk taking in business. I would finally be able to introduce my teenage sons and wife to hunting and conservation. But this farm was overhunted for three decades. An EHD outbreak (a/k/a, blue tongue disease caused by biting midges) in 2012 killed several deer and reduced the population overall, especially mature whitetail bucks. It took five years to start hitting our goals to improve the age class to at least 4-year-olds.   I watched Tease all winter on cams but did not hunt him in 2016 and started dreaming of what he would be in a year.   He disappeared later than winter.

 

   

  

  (R) First photo of Tease in 2016 a few days before Thanksgiving and a daylight photo near the end of season.

Months later on July 16, 2017, Tease appeared one time on a mineral lick trail camera as a GIANT in velvet!  It was the first time I had seen him since 2016, and he blew up into an estimated 186” monster. Then he disappeared again. 

   

                  Summer 2017: Tease on trace mineral + dicalcium phosphate + stock salt. 

The second time Tease showed was on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2017.  Almost to the day he showed a year earlier!  My chances of getting him into bow range were exceptionally good because I knew what patterns he would follow now and where he was going to bed.

    

                        Tease appeared for the first time since July on Thanksgiving Day, 2017

The Hunt

It was the night prior to the supermoon December 2, 2017.  I was in a ladder stand with my archery bow on the SW elbow of a small, ridge top plot I had sown with turnips and winter wheat.  It was a calm, swirling WNW wind, 63°F and a rising barometer at 29.34. At 2 p.m., five young bucks started to feed into the plot center.  This was much earlier than normal. 

 

Around 4pm, Tease fed into the plot from the NW.  I could not believe it was him!  The adrenaline rush was extreme.  I could hear my heartbeat coming from my mouth and thought Tease could hear it too.  So, I closed my mouth and concentrated on breathing deeply through my nose. 

 

Tease fed into 48 yards, stopped, quartered away, and grazed.  He had mass and a tree for antlers.  But I didn’t draw because he was too far.  My limit was 40 yards that season.  I have no regrets not taking that shot, but I do regret my unpreparedness to take that kind of shot.  That all changed for good after this hunt when I upgraded my mental approach, expectations in myself, and my gear.

 

I was confident that with an hour of daylight left, there would be some movement to bring him to at least 40 yards.  I decided to film him for a few seconds, but I was shaking so badly it was hard to steady the camera.  He then fed away slowly, eventually out to 93 yards to the far north end of the plot.  Here is a shaky screen shot when he offered at 48 yards: 

Darkness was approaching and I had to do something.  I had previously concluded Tease was passive-aggressive. He was always alone.  His antlers were perfect.  Never broken.  Never chipped. So, how do I get him closer? 

 

I did not want to grunt because he may not be up for a challenge. Especially post rut.  A snort wheeze might scare him away because he was a lover not a fighter. I didn’t want to bleat like a doe because he might not care.  I was covered in bucks right under me and calling was risky.  Still, I had to do something, so I stood up, got into my shooting stance, and did all three calls: doe bleat, grunt, and snort wheeze in succession. It worked! He immediately looked in my direction from 93 yards and started my way with purpose.  It was game on! 

 

He marched right towards me, got to that same exact 48-yard spot, kept looking my way, and finally dropped his head and started feeding again.  Except for now, he was quartering towards me with no shot! I stayed on my feet in a shooting stance, holding my release on the loop as darkness was quickly descending.  He took a step closer about every minute as he fed.  By this time too (45 minutes into seeing him for the first time), I was calm and so was he.    

 

Finally, Tease got within 40 yards with a minute of shooting light and turned broadside.  I aimed low because I anticipated he might “jump the string,” which is that split second when the buck lowers his body to run as a result of the sound made at the release of leg. I fully expected a 6-to- 8-inch drop.  I actually aimed to miss just under his chest at the line.  He didn’t budge until the arrow passed directly under him by an inch!  I made the perfect shot that was too perfect. Tease bounded to the west 20 yards with no follow up shot opportunity and calmly walked to the north, eventually out of sight.  I hunted Tease exclusively for the rest of that season, sometimes in subzero temperatures but he never offered any encounters, and all his trail camera pics were in darkness. 

Plan B

Like he had done the past two seasons, arriving around Thanksgiving Day, I knew Tease would return for the 2018 season.  Since my state allows supplemental feeding during the off season, I did everything to keep him healthy, close, and find his shed antlers too. 

Winter grain supplement kept Tease close knowing he would return around Thanksgiving 2018.

I continued to scout Tease through the winter, then he vanished again before he shed his antlers.  I captured a few trail camera pics of him in the summer of 2018 around the same dates and areas I got pics in 2017.  This is the same general pattern he displayed previously.  So, I planned to be in the spots where I knew he might appear around mid-November. I specifically moved and placed stands that summer to hunt Tease.   

Tease showed a few times in summer of 2018. 

In 2018, I was determined to be a better archer.  I bought a new updated compound, switched to a heavier arrow, learned more about my equipment, FOC, and arrow balance, changed my mental approach, and went back to fixed broadheads. I missed two bucks in 2017 and hit one high with a non-fatal shot in the scapula. I did not take a buck that season and lost all confidence.  It was a humiliating learning experience and self-induced.  But I was dialed in now with a new confidence boost.  I had been practicing with only broadheads at 60 yards all summer. I was also 100 percent confident a second chance at Tease would present itself.  It was an obsession. 

 

Failure always makes me better at something.  The mental choice is mine and then the discipline required can be intense to overcome failure. I got better.  But I was indeed obsessed with this buck.  Too much actually.  For sure, I was ready and now I would take a 48 yard quartered away shot at a relaxed whitetail.

Semper Fi

I was in Quantico, VA sitting in a rented SUV November 16, 2018, warming it up to see our middle son Benjamin’s commissioning as an Officer in U.S. Marine Corps.  But I was thinking about Tease mostly. I was in the midst of a large business deal for my company.  I left my laptop on the plane.  Ben wanted to be deployed. Would I ever see him again after this weekend? Would the enemy capture him?  Kill him?  Was my laptop being hacked?  Could I get this business deal done?  It was the rut. I have a 190” buck of a lifetime around my farm I expect to show any day now.  I am in Washington, DC, wearing city clothes, dress shoes, and using scented soap! Was “my buck” going to show up like I thought while I was here?  Was he going to be taken by a neighbor?  But I am an optimist, as every good bowhunter is and it could work out perfectly: We get to see Ben as a new US Marine Officer, blessed and honored as parents, get home on the 18, hunker at the farm, take Tease.  God Almighty had a different plan. 

The author’s family after USMC Officer Commissioning Ceremony, November 17, 2018. 

I spent most my time upon our arrival in Quantico completely distracted from why I was there.  As I sat in that rented SUV warming it up and waiting for my wife and sons, then came a text from my local Game Warden:  Tease had been killed instantly by a Chevy truck as he was crossing the state highway to come onto our farm!  Just like that, my dream buck of a lifetime was gone as I put the SUV in drive to see another remarkable event of my lifetime and be reunited with our new U.S. Marine Officer son.  It was a true test of resilience and disappointment.  A mix of emotions and distracted obsession, worry, anxiety, depression, enthusiasm, all at once and constant. 

Screenshot of the text message from the author’s Game Warden that Tease has been hit by a Chevy crossing the state highway to come to his farm on November 16, 2018.  Tease ran the same 3-farm pattern for three seasons in a row.  Tease grossed 196”

God’s Grace is All That We Need

As I headed back up to the farm to “not hunt Tease,” I kept asking “Why?”  Why did this happen to him?  Why did it happen to me?  Why did it happen this way?  Have I been overly obsessed with these bucks?  The answer was yes, and Tease taught me this principle.   Will there every be another like Tease?  Probably not.  That is why he was called the buck of a lifetime.

 

The Book of Job has a well-known verse often quoted:

 

There are no coincidences in life. There is only God’s providence.  All things have purpose. Especially suffering.  When I apply God’s word and biblical principles to problems and suffering, it ALWAYS results in blessing.  I had failed to see God’s grace in hunting Tease, in missing Tease on that shot, in all of these adversities that piled on, and I took everything upon myself in my pursuits and problems.  Just like the Apostle Paul was informed on the road to Damascus during his suffering: 

Tease was mounted by the neighbor from when he came before meeting the Chevy.  

When Tease was hit by that Chevy truck and I realized the earthly treasure I cherished so much was gone, I took notice and self-reflected.

 

Since then, I have surrendered these animals and my land to God Almighty.  This experience with Tease in 2017 and 2018 made me a better archer, better hunter, and to approach things with a better relaxed mental attitude.  All of these animals, this land, any possession, they are all His before they are mine, regardless of how many trail camera pictures I have or what I do to improve the land, and I now just take it all in one day at a time. ●●

 

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