November Magic
How a friendly disagreement in deer hunting theory leads to an unexpected harvest.
I already knew November 3rd was the best day to hunt for trophy buck. Last year I scored the biggest one of my hunting experiences using my data tested and proven theory.
Now, I was ready to share my advice and theory with a good friend named Keith. Keith had his own theory. He believed that November 7th was the best day. I, being certain of my theory, took a week’s worth of vacation days during the first week of November to show it. We’d see who was right.
However, Fate, the calendar, and oddball rules would conspire to interfere with my plan. Once every seven years November 3rd, falls on a Sunday. Unfortunately, more me there is no hunting on Sundays in my home state of Massachusetts. Of course, this was the year that it fell on a Sunday. So, I had to modify my plan. The second bump in the read was that I’d been assigned to attend an industry conference on November eighth.
Despite the possible bumps in the road, I knew I still had November 4th and it was only a day later. No problem! Besides I only needed four hours last year.
Monday morning, November 4th, we hiked through moose and bear infested forest to my tree stand. Moose make me nervous, more so than bear, because more people are attacked by moose than bear. I knew that moose were in rut.
I reached my tree stand in the cool, deep, dark of morning and climbed in quietly as possible. An hour so later, the first pink and white of the morning sun emerged through the tree branches. Not a whisper of movement or breath of air broke the silence of the deep forest.
Worst of all I didn’t see or hear anything moving.
The first wave of concern rippled over me as I wondered if I might have inadvertently climbed into someone else’s tree stand. Nearby, I had already settled my friend Keith into his stand. Keith was not new to hunting. He’d shot many bucks and had few worries today since he firmly believed that November 7th was the prime day.
Once settled into my stand I had some time to think. My first thought was that I did not want the crisp morning air to carry my scent into the ravine below me. Deer can smell hunters and my scent would scare them off. A second wave of concern hit me as I waited. I had been counting on the prevailing wind to come from the northwest to push my scent out over a small valley to the southeast.
Then came the last straw in my trifecta of worry. A red squirrel climbed down a hemlock tree in front of me and up my tree until we were face to face. The annoying rodent barked and chirped and flicked his tail. He made an ungodly racket in the silent morning. It wasn’t the wind, or the tree stand - I’d been busted by a squirrel. Every deer in the neighborhood would stay away.
At least that was what I thought until heard what I thought was a dirt bike. It was very high pitched. Long rips on the throttle before switching gears and getting closer.
I was confused now since the road was very far away and there were no trails a dirt bike could be traveling that fast on. The forest was big and thick. When I heard crashing on the other side of the ravine, I knew I was not hearing a combustion engine.
It was a deer.
I have never heard such a high-pitched long grunt from a deer. He was moving fast and soon would be gone, south down the mountain side. I let out a long, big grunt from my True Talker grunt call. He stopped turned and headed right for me crashing through brush, snapping branches all the way to the bottom of the ravine in front of me.
I remained still and quiet on high alert. So did the deer. Ten minutes must have passed. Not a sound. Nothing.
The squirrel was gone. There weren’t even any birds.
I looked at my watch. It was 8:30am. I started to think the deer smelled me and silently snuck away. Fifteen minutes passed and I couldn’t take it anymore. I grunted. The deer was in the exact same spot I last heard him, and he bolted down the hill. He couldn’t have made more noise running away. He must have smelled me. He just didn’t know exactly where I was until I grunted the second time.
Now he’d vanished.
We hunted hard the rest of the week rotating our sits between our morning stands and our evening stands. We had some farmland closer to town we could hunt in the evening when the deer normally would be coming out to fatten up in the meadow and on corn. But we saw nothing. Now what I thought would be a piece of cake, filling my tag in four days, was becoming impossible.
On Thursday November 7th, Keith’s scientifically data proven best day to hunt, we hunted from our mountain tree stands. When we left the truck, the day was overcast in the low forties, but it is always colder up in the mountains where I sat. It was our last day hunting so we decided we would stay all day.
By noon we were tired and hungry. With nothing to show for our morning and week I decided to take him on top of the mountain above the clear cut where I had harvested my pointer the year before. I had jumped a buck there during pre-season scouting and though we should give it a try. We didn’t have any stands there, so we just wandered up and sat on the ground about a hundred yards apart.
When the rain started to patter on my head and shoulders around two o’clock came, I was done. Exhaustion hung heavily on me, and I didn’t want to hunt anymore. I walked over to Keith he was ready to call it a season as well. He had a scent canister out and had been grunting a lot. We organized our equipment, packed it up and headed out. We briefly talked about how humbling the week had been.
The best week of the year stomped the hunt right out of us.
Keith led the way out. I was three yards behind him when he said “deer”. Thinking he was a tail bounding away, without any concern I said, “A doe”. He used his hand to signal me to stop and shut up. He had an arrow knocked and raised his bow. A wide racked monster emerged from the dark forest into a small clearing. He was moving fast with purpose. I took off my pack got an arrow out of my quiver and knocked it quickly without panic. Keith was already drawn and a good shot. The deer was 10-yards away when Keith used his artificial call to stop the buck. The buck quartered and was now directly facing me.
Keith had him broadside. I was sure he would kill the buck at any second. I waited. No shot. I was going crazy in my head. In my mind I was yelling “Shoot!!”.
Still no shot.
The deer dropped his head slightly then backed up. He saw me, I knew it. I was at full draw and ready to shoot. I waited still. The deer then gave me the side eye. This means he’s identified me and leaving. I knew he was going to run.
I fired my arrow. At the exact same moment Keith released his arrow as well.
The two arrows with bright colored fetching and aluminum shafts looked like two photon missiles shot out of an X-Wing fighter. They struck the deer simultaneously as the buck bounded away the path from which he came.
We stared in utter disbelief. The fatigue and despair we were experiencing had vanished. We had to gather our composure. We went and found the arrows.
Blood covered Keith’s arrow but not the fletching. My arrow snapped with no blood on the ground. Again, I was missing my broadhead. I did not know where I hit the deer.
There was plenty of blood on the ground. Then, we discussed what could have been a touchy subject. We needed to decide who got to claim the deer as theirs. We sat on a log and decided whoever’s arrow killed it would get it. If we both shot it in the vitals the closest to the heart wins. He agreed.
In my mind, Keith killed the deer. He had an easy broad side shot with blood all over his arrow. I had half an arrow with no blood.
While we waited to go and search for the deer, I asked him, “what took so long to shoot?” He surprised me by asking, “how did you get a shot off so fast?”
How knew I had to take off my backpack to get an arrow when he was walking with one knocked. Keith swears I shot first then he shot because he heard me shoot. I believe we shot simultaneously. In those moments of high pressure and adrenaline a second can feel like an eternity. Decisions are be made and time becomes easily distorted.
After a while we could wait no longer. Rain dropped lightly all around us and we did not want to wait for the blood to wash away. We either got him or we didn’t. We were off following the blood tail. We only walked 60-yards before we found him in a clearing.
We were getting close enough to see who had killed the deer. But upon arriving at him we couldn’t find any wound but plenty of blood. Keith ran his finger through blood on the neck and found the hole. My 125-grain Thunderhead sat lodged in the deer at the base of the head and neck. Then we needed to find Keith’s impact point. We found a wound on the bridge of the deer’s nose.
Keith hit the deer on the nose.
Keith conceded the deer was mine. I accepted the deer with the worst feeling in my stomach I ever had after shooting a deer. I had my second ten-pointer, but I didn’t want it this way. I wanted my friend to get his ten-pointer. It wasn’t meant to be. I named the deer Gilman after my friend Keith. If it wasn’t for Keith calling the deer, then stopping me and the deer, I wouldn’t have gotten him.