It was fairly warm the evening before and I had the next day off so I told myself I would take a little hunting trip to Autauga County community hunting area which is located about 20 minutes north of our capital city Montgomery,AL.
I awoke on Dec.15,2005 about 6 am and was in no hurry to get to the hunting land mainly cause I had only herd of it but had never hunted it. The land was mostly steep hills planted in pines with very little hardwoods. The power lines on the property had been planted in green fields and there were a lot of tracks in the one field that I had set up near. I placed my climbing stand about five yards off the green field to only think to myself if I were even in a good spot.
After the hour and a half drive and then taking almost another hour to just find a place to set up where the wind would be in my favor almost told me that I was wasting my time. By the time I had actually got set up and ready to hunt it was around 11:30 am. I thought to myself I’m never gonna see a deer like this but I stuck it out and eased back against the tree and relaxed.
There was a lot of sign to be seen just didn’t look all that fresh to me. Most times I would not even had considered trying to pull off a hunt like this being that I knew nothing of the land and it being public land on top of that. What happen that day was an act of God in my book and he is the only one I could thank after what took place that day.
After sitting in the stand for about thirty minutes I kept noticing that the power pole in the power lines in front of me had larges scratching against it. As I looked back behind me there were about five to ten small pine tree’s that had been rubbed. To my acknowledge I didn’t realize that I had set up most likely where a buck was marking his territory. I knew the rut had not kicked in yet and it was still a few weeks away but there was plenty of sign of at least one buck in the area just didn’t know how big.
Around 1:30 pm I had just about dozed off until something caught my attention. It was one of those moments when you think you saw a deer and there was no deer to be seen. But in this case there was a deer and a buck at that. I just wasn’t sure how big he was until he had gotten to within 25 yards and I just had that gut feeling he was gonna bust me when I tried to draw back my bow. I was nowhere even close to being ready.
The moment of fast heart beat and the chill that ran down my back and should I say my entire body had me so shaken up. The time was now or never as the buck took about five steps to my right and got his head behind some tree’s I then pulled back settled my pins and touched the release only to see the arrow hit a little far back than I had expected.
I took a few minuets to regroup myself and climbed down and took all my belongings back to my truck. At about 2:30 pm I took off back to where I had last seen the buck and only to find about four or five specks of blood. I felt like I gave the buck enough time to bed down and sure enough after about ten minuets of tracking I had my buck’s antler’s in my hands.
As I kneel down on both knees to thank the good Lord for giving me the chance at a great Alabama whitetail. Take your time when you go to a new place to hunt. Cause the first place you set up maybe the best place.