Originally Posted by
Pioneerfreq
Hands down my most epic hunt for sure:
It was a mid-November afternoon and the first snow of the season was on the ground around the cottage property. A cold snap had started. It was -10 Celsius, dropping and the weather report was calling for -18 overnight. The wind was also gusting strong from the North West. My wife and I were bored so we decided to go for a walk in the woods out of the wind to see if we could find any grouse. Shotguns in hand and dressed for the elements, off we went.
My wife was about 20 yards ahead of me on the trail as we approached a beaver dam. She looked back at me with fingers above her head (like antlers) to indicate deer tracks. The snow was very recent so these tracks had to be fresh. I motioned to her to get down and we both crouched and carefully scanned the point next to the beaver dam directly in front of us. Eventually, I spotted him about 40 yards away in the thick pines on the point, a huge buck. The pond runs east west and we were on the south shore. Because the wind was blowing, he didn’t hear us and because it was blowing diagonally towards us from the North West, he didn’t smell us either. We watched in awe but could do nothing. Gun season for deer was over and we only had shot suitable for grouse anyway. It was somewhat bitter as we had terrible luck with deer that particular season and had essentially given up hope on getting one.
“Are you warm enough to stay here and watch him for a few minutes?” I said to my wife. “Sure but why?” she said. “The cottage is only a 5 minute walk. I’m going to get the crossbow.” I knew it was unlikely he would still be there by the time I got back but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I moved away cautiously and once I was out of sight of the point, I hurried back to the cottage. Trying to stay focused, I un-cased the crossbow, cocked it, found a bolt with a new broadhead on it rushed out the door, locked it and hurried back to the point. I expected to run into my wife on the way back but I didn’t. Approaching the area slowly, I could see my wife still crouched in the same spot and she saw me coming back. I pointed to where the buck was before and she nodded her head yes.
Moving very cautiously south east of where the buck was, I began my sneak out onto the point. His shape gradually came into view as I approached. Very slowly I was able to move to within what I figured was 30 yards. I had a reasonable shooting lane but the gusty wind worried me a bit. Waiting until there was a lull in the wind gusts, I slowly stood and lined up my shot on the heart/lung area. He looked over at me and I pulled the trigger. This is where things became… interesting…
To put things into perspective, it’s now about 4:00 in the afternoon, light is starting to fade, the temperature has dropped to -15 and the wind is gusting to about 50 km/h. I’ve just put a bolt through one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever seen. As I’m sneaking towards the buck, I’m thinking “there is snow on the ground so at least tracking shouldn’t be a problem.” Things don’t always go the way you think they will…
After pulling the trigger, I see the bolt hit the buck and the shot looks good. He takes off running… Across the freshly frozen pond! After a few steps, he breaks through the ice and he is struggling to swim and break ice towards the opposite shore. My wife and I both run to the shore to get a better look and at this point my brain is screaming “oh , now what?” I don’t have a gun or an extra bolt or anything to try and stop him. Finally about 40 yards out, effects of the crossbow bolt are becoming evident. He slows and eventually succumbs, floating among the chunks of broken ice about 40 yards from shore. While there is some relief that he has stopped, again I think “oh , now what?”
Where we are located is alongside a trail not really meant for full size vehicles and I don’t have an ATV or a snowmobile. My wife agrees to stay and keep an eye on the buck while I go back to the cottage and get what we need. Light is fading fast and I can see that my wife is getting cold so I don’t waste any time. I’ve learned in the past that rushing is not a good thing, none the less I’m rushing to try to deal with the situation before the light is gone and it’s really cold. I also don’t want the pond to re-freeze around the buck. Immediately upon arriving at the cottage, I pull the canoe out of winter storage and tie it to the truck. I get rope, two flashlights and an axe. Hopping into the truck, I head off down the trail and pray I don’t get stuck.
In 4 wheel drive and in low gear, I drive the half kilometer or so to the point. The only moment of concern is when I have to drive through a section of the trail that has about a foot of water over it with an inch of ice on top. Once at the point, I get the canoe down and put the flashlights, rope and axe into the canoe. There was about ten feet of inch thick ice to chop through before we would be in the open water channel created by the buck. We slid the canoe on the fresh snow up to the edge of the shoreline. After donning lifejackets, I stepped into the middle of the canoe and my snow covered boot and the shiny resin interior of the canoe meant I immediately fell, my ribcage hitting the gunnel hard. I was startled and winded. Slowly, getting back to my feet, I didn’t think anything was broken but it was hard to tell, maybe the padding of the lifejacket saved me.
My wife said “slow down, it’ll be fine, there is no rush”. She was right. I knew better. We worked the canoe to the edge again with me in the front and I began chopping through the ice all the while thinking “don’t drop the axe, don’t drop the axe”. Finally I was able to make an open space in the ice around the front of the canoe and we worked our way along gradually chopping through the ice until we were in the open water channel created by the buck. Maneuvering the canoe close to the buck, I carefully tied a rope onto his rack and tied that to the canoe. All this while the wind gusted at 50 km/h somewhere between -15 and -18 degrees. We both turned to face the opposite direction and rowed the canoe back to shore. It sure felt good to be back on shore. The thought of being in that water on a night like this with an overturned canoe was a little unnerving to say the least.
The rope that I had tied to the rack on the buck was tied to the trailer hitch so we could pull him out of the water with the truck. My wife watched while I hopped into the truck and fired it up. Four wheel drive, low gear and I press on the accelerator to inch forward. Nothing. It didn’t move. Again a gentle push on the accelerator. No movement. It dawned on me what was happening. Remember the foot deep water I had to drive through? Well, the truck had been sitting outside in -15 degree weather so all of it’s parts were also -15 degrees. That means the water I drove through froze the breaks to the rotors.
I crossed my fingers that if I went in reverse and forward a few times, maybe they would break free without damaging anything. Luckily after a few attempts they came unstuck and I was in business. I pulled the buck out of the pond, quickly applied my tag, gathered everything up, tied the canoe back onto the truck and we both climbed in with the heater blasting. Instead of the two of us trying to get that big wet buck into the back of the truck, we just dragged it slowly behind on the freshly fallen snow.
Arriving back at the cottage, what a sense of relief! We went inside to warm up, have some warm tea and a quick bite to eat. The light was gone now, the wind was still gusting and the cottage thermometer said -18. My wife and I bundled up to go and deal with our deer. I finally had a chance to have a good look at him. Twelve points and one that had been broken off makes thirteen! Wow!I couldn’t believe it. There was no time for revelry however. We have a twelve foot high tripod for skinning and breaking down bear and deer. I set it up, hung the block & tackle with scale attached and attached the hook to a rope around his rack. We both pulled the rope and when he was off the ground, I tied it off and looked at the scale. Two hundred and forty pounds on the nose.
It was difficult skinning a deer with mitts on but in these temperatures there was no choice. They quickly became covered in blood and any time I picked up something that had been outside for a little while (like a metal flashlight), they would freeze to that item. With perseverance we managed to get the hide off and get him broken down. Ironically, we had to put all of the parts into the big propane fridge in the cottage that night so that they wouldn’t be frozen solid by morning. Yes, we put everything in the fridge to keep it WARM enough not to freeze.
Bed time that night was sure welcome. Felt like it took forever to get warmed up again. The next morning, we closed everything up and headed back home to spend the day butchering. Once we reached the highway in the truck we had to take it slow as the trip through the foot deep water had caused chunks of snow and ice to freeze onto the rims making all of the wheels out of balance. We had to find the nearest carwash and get off everything we could in order to not have the steering wheel shake out of your hands.
He’s the second biggest buck by weight I’ve ever shot but so far he has the most points. He sure made us work for it. That is one night I will NEVER forget.
As a side note to this story, I found out something interesting about this particular buck after we completed butchering. I had decided that I would just do a European mount of the skull and antlers. I had kept the head outside while butchering and the next day, I prepared to clean everything off the skull. I brought it inside to the big butcher table to thaw out and started to get everything ready. Stopping to admire this magnificent beast now that I had adequate time to do so. In looking carefully over the head for scars and other unique characteristics, I realized that this rack had the strong smell of juniper. Funny as it sounds, he smelled fantastic. My mind flashed back to over a week ago when my wife and I were hunting grouse about half a kilometer away from where I arrowed the buck. While zig-zagging through the brush beside the trail, I came on a juniper bush that had been thrashed to bits. Broken branches everywhere and the exposed wood still very blond. I thought it unusual at the time that a buck would use a juniper bush for a rub instead of a small tree but didn’t really give it another thought. This gave me an idea of where this big buck had been hanging out. It’s cool when things come full circle to help increase your knowledge and understanding.
Your most epic hunt!
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