Sportsmen & Women

My nephew, Kirby "Critterman" Rogers brought this trophy Thanksgiving buck by to show me this morning.  He was using his 270 rifle and did a 60 yard neck shot he told me.  The big buck was chasing a doe and it was a challenge to get the right shot.  He checked the buck in at The Village in Sallisaw and the checker listed it as 16 points and 142 pd. field dressed.  If Kirby had entered the big buck contest he would have been in the running for first prize. CONGRATULATIONS KIRBO!  Job well done...

CONGRATULATIONS NEPHEW ON THIS BIG 86 POUND DOE.  SHE LOOKS LIKE A  FAT HEALTHY DEER AND WILL BE TASTE MIGHTY GOOD ON THE DINNER PLATE!

Looks like we have a new deer hunter in our family!  This young hunter shot his first buck on opening day of modern gun season.  Was quiet a story his mom told me about the hunt.  CONGRATULATIONS - JARED!

  This is Stetson's 7 point buck he shot this past season.  CONGRATULATIONS STETSON!    Nice Buck!  He and his mom will have plenty of venison for the freezer.  

                   ”PATIENCE IS VIRTUE”

 About two years ago on the Army base that we hunt on, there is a place we go to called Mill Creek? This is our honey hole. We have to get there early before all the "CoonAsses" Ha-Ha, from south Louisiana take our spot. I was hunting in a spot on some new tracks, and really not had a chance to scout much that day. So I’m up in my climbing stand about 40' off the ground. The wind is my favor and good camouflage to break my silhouette. It's about 6:30am just waiting for anything to pop out. Two hours rolled by. Four ours rolled by still not a damm thing. The wind started to pick up heavy and I decided to get down. It was getting close to 12pm so here is a good time to find another spot to hunt. I new if the deer wasn't coming out by now then I’m in wrong spot be at.

I hid my deer stand behind some cedar bushes and started off in the thicket to scout. I’ am looking for rub lines first because down there they are very easy too spot from 50 yards. I’ am about 100 yards now from were I left my stand at. Finally the "Deer Gods" answered and here is the rub line I’ve been looking for right in front of me. This is what I came down here for. This rub line I’m looking at is very good. He was rubbing trees 1-1/2 to 2'' thick. Boy, my heart was pumping and Yea! this is it and all now to look for is a good ole scrape. I walked carefully around the rub line looking for that scrape and not leaving any sent of me around. There it is that scrape. I looked at it and boy it looked old and not very promising. It had a bunch of leaves in it but not enough to rule it out. I bent down to smell it to see how fresh it was. It was 50 to 50% fresh but it had rained the day before. Well I was pleased to see this and convinced to set my stand up near by for the shot.

My buddy was calling me on the radio so I headed back to get my stand. I met up with him and told him "come with me and tell me what this is". I had left him in suspense and wondering what I had found. I showed him the rub line and he was amazed and "were the scrape?" he said! Behind you.

He said boy, you need to pick you a tree and sit here rest of the day. You don't get to see this down here to often and not too far in the thicket. This buck is not very scared to be this close to the edge of the thicket. This was the day of Thanksgiving and I was about to set up camp on this nice buck.

Well we were looking for my tree to climb up and looking at all the angles to have natural cover. I got my stand and found the tree I needed to be in. I headed up about 40' and hoisted up my gun, got situated and chambered a round and played the waiting game. My bud said well I’ am going back to the house to eat the bird and I’ll save you a plate. Save me a piece of Pecan Pie and I'll see after dark.

It was about 3:30 once I got settled and scanning the surroundings. Oh! About 5:30ish I started to here something walking and the old heart started to pumping. All right its time, so I flipped the safety off the gun and hoped not to get the old saying "Buck Feaver" syndrome. Sure enough all that noise of walking was those damm squirrels. Crapp! Safety goes back on and scanning the area again. 6:15pm it was and my tummy was a moaning and it was getting dark pretty fast. I started to here something coming my way and I turned really slow to look and not to make any noise. I didn’t see anything to my left, slowly turned to the right and! There he went running off with his flag a waving. All that time a waiting and could have a belly full of the bird and he had to do that to me. Crapp! The time was about 6:40pm now and dark is pretty close so I waited to see if comes back and no sound of him. I tried to grunt call him back and nothing. I waited a little bit longer and looking off to my right was he ran off too i had seen in the corner of my eye. There i looked back to my left and appeared out of no were was a doe and her Fon. I didn’t here them walking up and they were right in front of me just about 10yds. That was the coolest thing and kind of mysterious just out of the blue. By this time it was too dark to shoot and not a doe day. I just sat there quietly and let them leave out of the area UN disturbed. I got down after the excitement packed my stand out and headed back to the road. My bud was there and said were that buck? did you shoot or what? Nope Iam just hungry and left it as that. 

The next day we couldn’t go back because it was raining all day. We tried the fowlling day and were off on raining. That was the last day of hunting for us. I said we come back next year to get him. 

Last year we are back for the next round of hunting. You wouldn’t believe the Army did not meet the qualifications for some training that they were doing. They had too shut down the whole base for the season to us hunters. A lot of hunters were pissed. We had hunted around his family land and turned up empty handed and that’s how it goes sometimes. 

Now this year the base is fully open to us hunters and I don’t think anybody has bothered this deer. Cross my fingers and hope the Deer Gods are good to me this year that he is back there.

Save this story and I will add to it if i get him and I'll send a picture with it.

Travis this sure is a pretty buck and we enjoyed your stories.  CONTRATULATIONS ON THE LOUSIANA BUCK!