I slowly raised the bottom cam off my leg and extended my bow arm. Just as I reached the point I started to pull back on the release, the bucks head swung around and looked right at me!!!

I was on the second afternoon of a two day hunt on the Bar E ranch near Hondo Texas hunting whitetail. The Bar E has an population of both native and exotic game and I'd upgraded from just exotics to whitetail after arriving Sunday and seeing what was in the walk-in cooler! Two BIG whitetails, an aoudad and the biggest fallow I'd ever seen, that had been taken over the weekend, and were all ready to head to the taxidermist. I was hunting for the first time with Shawn Denison, PSE factory shooter.  He arrived very shortly after I did. He was heading up to Kansas for a big whitetail, so he was after one of the big exotics. The only other hunters in camp were a couple of buddies from Kansas that were relatively new to bowhunting. We headed out and were settled in stands by 5:30. The first evening was fairly quiet for me with the exception of one of the big red stag coming and feeding RIGHT in front of me at about 12 yards for the last 30 minutes of daylight.

Shawn, on the other hand, was out of his ground blind looking in the brush when we arrived to pick him up. He'd arrowed an axis and the search was on. But not for long! Less than 60 yards away we found his 30" buck:

 

Monday morning everyone was up and in the stands well before daylight except Shawn, who'd decided he could chase hogs in his dreams for the morning hunt, since he already had his exotic. I was near one of the earthen tanks at the edge of an opening that was about 80 acres or so. When the sky started to lighten, I could see several VERY distinct shapes in the grass about 40 yards away. There were 6 Bison bedded down right in front of me!! I saw two young whitetail briefly that morning but no shooters so I headed back to the bunkhouse around 9:00 for some grub. I made a brief jaunt back out after eating, but decided a nap was in order, so I hiked hiked back to the bunkhouse AGAIN for the afternoon.

 

The afternoon passed quickly, as it will do when you're snoozing :-) Next thing I knew, it was time to shower and head out. I was the first one to be put in my stand, a tripod in the same general area I'd been in, but a lot deeper into the heavy cover. I had only just got settled, ranged various objects in the opening in front of me and nocked an arrow when I caught sound from my left. Now, it was only about 10 yards to the road straight throught the brush but I could only get small glimpses of the animal making the sound. Looked like the right color for a deer. I finally caught enough of the back to know it was either the biggest doe in Texas or a buck, so my pulse started picking up a bit. Next I saw antler, I couldn't tell how big yet but the heartbeat went up another notch. A minute or so later, I got enough of a window to see all of one antler... one..two... three... FOUR AND A BROWTINE!!! Now everything went into hyperdrive! My heart was in my throat and beating like a thousand drums!! I went through the list... wind in my face-check... heavy between the deer and my stand until the deer was past me-check. OH MAN!! It seemed to take forever for the buck to cover the last five yards before he stepped clear, each second I was expecting SOMETHING to go wrong.

 

Finally he cleared the cover and I slowly lifted the bow off my leg and extended my arm. The bucks head whirled around and he looked right at me... I froze, afraid to breath and sure he could see or hear me shaking all over. Suddenly his head turned back around and he stepped forward with the near leg and I drew. Set the pin on the pocket, check kisser button location and the arrow was gone! The buck dove away from the sound but the broadhead was there, entering and doing it's fatal work. Just like that, the biggest deer I've ever taken was on the ground!! As you can tell from the photo, I'm pretty happy!! He rough scored just under 125 and has some character on the right side antler that will make him unique for all time!