The Small Horn Buck

[Stringwacker]

Some days are just better than others....that's a fact.

I went this morning over to a small acreage I have about an hour from the house. Its pretty special because my Dad took me hunting there as a child (on my grandparents farm) and I killed my first squirrel there when I was 6. (I'm 67 now) I don't hunt it but just a handful of days a year; saving it usually for my adult son to kill a deer on the few days he gets to hunt. He went yesterday without seeing a deer, but the wind change was excellent for this morning so I decided to make the predawn trip over there... knowing he wouldn't be hunting today.

In my other three trips this year, I saw that the deer had made a 180 degree switch in the way they travel. For decades in the morning they would ALWAYS go west to east, but everytime this year they went go east to west, crossing a small creek before coming up on my side. I dragged a 18' ladder stand 150 yards and put it where I thought they must be crossing the creek the last time I went over there.

This morning, I saw a deer go down the steep 25 ft bank about 100 yards from me and hit the bottom of the creek below my line of sight. I could sometimes see a little ripple in the water on the far edge of the creek as the deer slowly walked the creek bed toward me. All of a sudden, I saw the tip of a ear emerge from the creek bottom.... and he then just popped up over the edge of the creek bank 15 yards from me! I noticed at that point the deer was a buck and not a doe. He had a large adult body but the smallest antlers I have ever seen on a grown deer (1/2"). Given Mississippi allows you to kill 'one' any buck, I figured he would be a good one to take out of the herd. The 47 pound Black Widow, 2018 shaft and two blade Stinger ripped through the deer and he ran 40 yards with blood spraying everywhere.. and fell in sight. A couple of kicks and all was quiet again.

It was a good morning, not only to add a little meat to the freezer (my third this year) but to reminisce about my childhood spent here and how I got this old.