A Year To Remember

The 2020 calendar year has certainly been one to remember. For many, this has understandably been a year filled with tremendous negativity. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many challenges. However, for me it has provided one positive: a lot of time spent in the woods. Without the ability to do many normal activities, I spent more time at our camp than I can remember in a long time.

When the quarantine began in late March, I used it as an opportunity to head to camp and try my hand at shed hunting. I had never shed hunted before, and I knew little about it. I figured that at the very least, I would get to spend some relaxing time at camp and get to hike a bit.

After a little research and getting boots on the ground I was hooked. After two Saturdays in the big woods I had found 4 sheds. All of which were on public land a couple miles back in the Allegheny National Forest. The highlight of these was a 10 point matching set that I found, one on each Saturday, not 150 yards from each other. As this is where we deer hunt in the fall, the sheds I found filled me with anticipation for the coming season.

As summer faded to fall and the hunting season kicked off, I found myself heading north to camp nearly every weekend. I was able to harvest my first deer of the year, a doe, behind our camp during the first weekend of the early muzzleloader season.

Uncle Rob joined me the next weekend for the last two days of the doe season. We had Friday and Saturday to hunt, and he asked if I would even shoot a doe (I had 2 DMAP tags) now that I already had one and the rut should be firing up. I told him I thought so, I hadn’t gotten any deer the year prior and I was hoping to have a full freezer.

“Hey, you never know, maybe you didn’t get any last year but you’ll go 3 for 3 this year,” he commented.

I had no idea what God had in store.

I was able to fill my second doe tag of the year that Saturday, leaving the rest of the season to search for a good buck.

We didn’t have too much luck the following weekends. Guy’s Weekend and the weekend after should have fallen in line perfectly with the rut, but no one got a ton of action. I saw a few deer, including a decent 6 point that frequented one of my stands, but that was it.

The archery season came to a close and my mind was now on rifle season. I have only taken one buck from camp; a nice 8 point in 2018 that I shot with my Tikka T3 .308. I thought it would be really cool to get a buck with my late Grandpa’s Winchester Model 70 Featherweight .257 Roberts, so that was what I carried this year.

Much like every year, I couldn’t get any sleep the night before the opener. The only rivaling feeling is trying to sleep as a kid on Christmas Eve. The alarm went off 4:15 AM and we were in the truck by 5:00.

As we made our annual first day trek into the ANF, I couldn’t believe the opening day was already upon us. While I had spent a lot of time in the woods this season, it still passed by in no time.

I had picked out two spots when scouting on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The first of which was just below the Little Saddle, near where I shot my first Allegheny National Forest buck just two years prior. The second was on the point of the First Finger, where I set up on the opening day last year. Both had lots of sign and have proven to be good spots in the past. I chose the latter.

Soon my surroundings came into view as the sky began to brighten. The air was crisp, sky clear and leaves wet. Aside from having snow on the ground, it couldn’t have been a more picture perfect opening morning in the woods. I was set up looking into the thick valley below me where there was good sign.

Around 8:00 AM I heard some grunting on top of the bench above me. I repositioned my set up to look uphill from where I heard the grunt. After 15 minutes of not seeing anything, I broke out my thermos of hot coffee to warm up on the brisk morning.

It was about 8:30 AM when a deer blew behind me. I immediately dropped to a knee and grabbed my gun that was resting against the tree at my back. I hadn’t made any movements or noise, so I was unsure what spooked the deer. I finally caught a glimpse of it as it trotted directly at me.

The doe walked in front of me broadside at just 30 yards before working up to the top of the ridge, where she proceeded to blow once again. Thinking she may have just blown the area out of deer, I began to think about my plan for the rest of the day.

Vince was now working up the jeep trail valley below me, so I repositioned downhill once again in case he bumped something my direction. After 10 minutes, I happened to look back up the ridge to my back. I saw a deer, nose down, coming down the trail the doe left on.

I immediately saw a large wide rack. There was no doubting this was a shooter. I grabbed my gun and used the tree as a rest. The buck was headed straight at me. Within seconds he was at 50 yards and finally turned broadside. He was working through some thick brush as I rested the crosshairs behind his right shoulder. As he eased out behind the brush, I squeezed off my shot.

The buck kicked, dropped its head, and ran downhill…STRAIGHT AT ME!

I had visions flashing through my head of the deer running into me, antlers down. I racked another shell and as we locked eyes at 8 yards, I fired off another shot, this time from my side.

He immediately turned and I could see that my first shot was perfect. He bounced off two different trees, wobbled for a second and dropped right in front of me at just 20 yards.

I was shaking like crazy and I couldn’t help but pick up my radio:

“I just shot a freaking giant!” I told the guys.

The entire sequence, starting with laying eyes on the buck and ending with him falling over, couldn’t have lasted more than 30-40 seconds. Realistically, this was probably good as I didn’t have time to get nervous.

The “congratulations” began to roll in over the radio. I walked up on the buck and I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was even bigger than I had thought. Truly, a once in a lifetime PA mountain buck. That was only the beginning.

I was preparing to gut the deer as Vince, Ken and Rob made their way over from their respective spots. We got some great pictures that will be forever etched in my mind. While doing so, I realized the buck had scarring on the right side of his snout, and was missing his right eye to boot. He was a true mountain bruiser.

Someone then commented that the buck looked similar to some of the sheds I found this spring just 150 yards from where he now lay. It hadn’t even come to my mind that this could be a possibility. I pulled out some pictures of the sheds and began to analyze the details.

It didn’t take long to realize the obvious: this is the same buck that I found the matching 10 point set of 7 months prior. While he lost one small point on his left side and gained one on his right, the unique characteristics otherwise proved it was the same buck. On top of this, he was virtually in between where I found the two sheds.

Rob commented, “Wow…You are having one hell of a year”

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Rob and Vince moved out to continue their hunt as Ken and I began dragging at 11:00 AM. Normally, I would de-bone the deer in the field but this one needed caped as it is headed for the taxidermist.

We took our time dragging the buck and got to the truck around 2:45 PM. The celebratory beer that followed was the best of my life.