The Buck of Circumstance

Circumstance: noun; a condition, detail, part, or attribute, with respect to time, place, manner, agent, etc., that accompanies, determines, or modifies a fact or event; a modifying or influencing factor.

Some have called me lucky, and perhaps that is true. We certainly hadn’t planned to hunt this buck, and he was no where near our planned hunting grounds. A chain of events, however, eventually led us to him. These events were at first seen as unfortunate and perhaps even debilitating. In the end, they would turn out to be blessings in disguise.

Day One:
I left Bismarck early on Friday, Nov. 14 with plans to meet Dad at Trotters between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. but the wind and snow slowed me down in my little car, especially west of Dickinson, where traffic slowed to 30 miles per hour at some points. I called to apologize for being late, but Dad pointed out the wind and snow made it miserable and he hadn’t seen a single deer that morning while he scouted. We joked that the day might be better spent touring the small Western ND bars instead.

The snow and wind lightened for me the closer I got to Beach, but with the best part of the morning already spent, I didn’t expect much. After we drove to check out a few different areas Dad had hunted antelope, he remarked that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen a single deer then or now. Little did we know, that scenario would be dramatically different the next day.

The wind was still blowing and we knew our best option was to walk the badlands in search of bedded or browsing deer, so we headed for the badlands, stopping along the way to glass for deer. Again, dad remarked with disbelief that he still hadn’t seen a single deer. “I know they’re in there. They just have to be.” Meanwhile, Tim was on his way down from New Town to help us look. We set out on a walk with plans to meet up with him later.

Within the first hundred feet, Dad finally spotted a doe and a fawn bedded down in the bottom of a draw. Rut was in the air so he looked carefully for a buck, but the does were alone. Dad paused to scan the hills and coulees for deer. “How big of a buck do you want anyway,” Dad asked. I just shrugged.

“Okay, we’ll try to find one with browtines.”

Admittedly, chances of me getting or even seeing a deer that day were slim as I struggled just to keep myself upright. Although snow stuck to the ground it also served as an insulator thawing mud and clay during the week, so it was a slippery mess. At one point, while Dad stopped to glass the coulees, he commented how he’d liked to have been there when God created this area. Trying to kick clay and snow off my boots, I murmured that I was pretty sure He just had a huge animal do its “business” there.

We walked for a while before coming across some fresh tracks that appeared to come from a large buck and decided to track them. We followed them for a few hours before finally losing them. We decided it was probably time to head back south to meet up with Tim. As we came up to the pickup, we saw a few deer run down into a draw. Not surprisingly, Tim was out on a walk, so we decided to see if we could catch up with the moving deer, and started out to a ridge opposite where they’d run in so we could try to sneak a peek.

They’d moved fast and we could only see one smaller forked buck in the coulee. Tracks suggested the others had already made it up and over the next ridge. “I’ve never come this way before. Do we go take a look over the next ridge?” Dad asked.

“We’re here now, we might as well,” I said.

“That’s what I like to hear!”

We followed the tracks over the next ridge, but to no avail. Not a single buck or doe in sight. “I know they’re here!” Dad said. “They’re looking at us right now!” It would turn out they probably weren’t. We avoided going to “one more ridge” because Dad knew Tim would be itching for an update and an evening walk. As we made our way back, tracks came out from the other side of the ridge. “Those sneaky—!” Dad said. “They just doubled back right behind us!”

We followed their tracks to a crossing at the creek not far from where we’d crossed the first time. We met Tim, and although it was late, we decided for one more walk. Seeing only a doe and another small buck, we decided to call it a night. We’d start here again tomorrow, and we headed for Beach.

I had mentioned that circumstance played a huge part in even finding my buck, and the first circumstance was that we’d ended up in Beach. All the motels in Watford and Sidney were booked, so the next place Dad tried was in Beach. Had it not been for this, we never would have been in the area where we spotted the buck.

Day Two:
We set out the next morning with plans to go back where we’d left off, near where Tim had bagged his monster the weekend before. Those plans quickly changed as we drove north and saw fields filled with feeding deer. There was barely a breeze that morning, so the deer were finally out of the coulees. Dad kept remarking he could hardly believe there were all these deer when he hadn’t seen a single one last month while hunting antelope. We stopped occasionally to glass the fields, seeing only one small buck if any. Then, about two miles south of Trotters, we stopped to glass two fields right next to each other and spotted two large four-by-fours and one clean 5x5 that Tim mentioned looked like a superb first time buck. There was school trust land that they were moving toward, and with three bucks larger than I had planned on even seeing, we decided we’d watch them to see where they’d bed.

It seemed it would turn out perfectly since they were calling for higher temperatures and walking the grassier hills of the trust land would be better than struggling up and down the slick clay buttes. But, once again, circumstance would interfere.

I watched as two pickups sped past and stopped ahead of us about two hundred yards where Dad and I had just been parked to check on one of the bucks in the neighboring field. “Dad, we have company,” I said.

He looked as one pickup drove forward, while another turned and drove back and headed for another gravel road to take a look. I watched, disappointed, as the two pickups circled the two fields and some of the deer began to grow leery. Not sure of where the deer were now running, we decided we were better off going with our original plan rather than putting ourselves in a possibly more dangerous situation by hunting the same deer as four others. We left, albeit reluctantly, with Tim far ahead of us. I was a little frustrated since any of the three would have made excellent first bucks, but my frustration ebbed momentarily as we crested the hill.

As a rookie, I have to look hard at a deer to truly tell if it’s a large buck, but coming over the hill and looking down into a distant coulee, there was no doubt that the buck in the herd of deer was a big one. “Ohhoho!” Dad said and watched him in his binoculars. “It’s got browtines! He’s got a lot of mass. That’s a big buck!” Then he turned to me with a big smile. “Tessa, that’s a shooter!”

He turned back to watch the buck, laughing happily. “And it’s on Alan’s land!”

This was seen as a very good sign since Alan had given dad permission to hunt on his land before. My heart sunk, however, when I heard a pickup speeding behind us. “Dad, they saw him, too!”

We watched as the two pickups sped past us and our hearts sunk further when their brake lights came on as they came up on Alan’s approach. “They’re going to ask permission,” Dad said.

I secretly pleaded with them to turn left, instead of right into Alan’s yard. Dad continued watching the buck and murmuring he’d misplaced Alan’s phone number. Then, the pickups turned left and sped on. A few of the bucks we were watching must have ran across the road behind us. Dad smiled and we went to Alan’s yard to seek permission. They hadn’t even seen the big bucks just a few hundred yards off the road. Then again, I imagine it’s difficult to use binoculars when driving at the same time.

Alan wasn’t home, so we went to his brother, Harlan, to see if he was able to give permission for that particular piece of land. Meanwhile, I tried desperately to get a hold of Tim, cussing the lack of reception for one of the first times in my life. Harlan said he couldn’t give permission, but told us where we would find Alan, and as we drove back to Alan’s house, we met Tim. I jumped in with him to continue watching the buck as dad drove down to Alan’s again. We watched hoping the deer would bed down where they would give us a decent vantage point, but they were in full rut and continued moving along the coulee. At about 8:30 a.m., Dad drove up with a smile on his face, and we knew the hunt was on.

“You nervous?” Tim asked. I shrugged.

I knew I’d still have to get on him before I could even get a shot, and with the wind coming up from the wrong direction, it wasn’t going to be easy.

We decided the way the deer were rutting, they’d continue up the coulee, so Dad and I would walk down toward the end, get set up, and wait for the deer to walk right up to us. Tim would stay atop the hill to watch and signal us if something changed. Admittedly, we mistook Tim’s waving arms and legs as dad watched him through the binoculars. While I lay, getting my gun set up and Dad crawled a little further up the ridge to get a better look of where the deer were, Tim had quickly covered over half a mile sneaking up behind us. The deer had bedded down one more coulee over. We backed out and decided to try another approach.

A new challenge arose as another buck’s does bedded at the point where two creeks met. We had to try and move toward the buck of our choice and his does without spooking the deer immediately in front of us. With the wind at our advantage, or we hoped, the plan was to slowly limber back where we came and allow the wind to reach the unwanted deer’s noses welcomingly pushing them down the coulee. I watched the does and then the smaller buck move from their respected thicket and as I did Tim whispered, “Ahhh, I knew better!”

Instead of going down, the deer trotted staright north to go up and over. We watched nervously, hoping the does with our buck didn’t see them and spook, too. They disappeared over the ridge, and nothing came form the coulee where the bigger buck disappeared over the ridge, it appeared we got lucky.

We followed the ridge east a few hundred yards, but unfortunately, there was little cover for us to get very close. We crawled as far as we could while staying out of sight, then dropped to our bellies and snuck a little further up. We grew a little nervous as we looked for the deer and didn’t see even a single doe. Had they spooked and ran while we were on the other side of the hill and couldn’t see them? But then, Dad caught a glimpse of an antler which later turned out to be the one-antlered buck that was with the herd. We didn’t dare try to sneak any further for closer look, but it was still a few hours before they would get up. We decided it would be better to back out once more and try another approach. This time we would go to the ridge on the opposite side of the coulee and hope to get a better vantage point there. We crawled back out and started the long trek around two hills to make sure we stayed out of sight.

We continued up the ridge, arriving at the top at about 12:30 p.m. We crawled up to some sage brush close to the edge of the ridge that gave us a slim vantage point, but again, we couldn’t see the big buck. We crawled back down the ridge about ten yards to see if we had a better angle from there. Tim crept forward as Dad and I stayed back to get a bipod mounted on my rifle. Tim could finally see the buck, but a tree stood right in the way of a good, clean shot. He crawled along to see if other angles would give me a better shot, but had decided my only option was to wait for them to get up. He was just about to come back and wait with us for about another hour for them to start moving when he motioned me forward. At about 1:15 p.m. they had already begun to move.

I crawled forward and tried to get the bipod set up and in position. The buck was still in the trees, but it looked as though he was about to enter a clearing about 150 yards out where I would get a good shot. I got my sights set for the clearing when the buck veered south and followed the tree line. I struggled to turn the bipod again and get it in position for the next clearing. Nerves hadn’t really set in, but frustration mounted as I struggled to get the bipod level and in position. The buck continued to walk away from the does, turning sharply, making it even more difficult to get the bipod set right. I constantly reminded myself to just be patient. If I didn’t get a shot, he’d likely be here tomorrow.

Tim and Dad whistled to try and get the buck to stop, but I still hadn’t gotten the bipod set up right when the buck wandered behind a bush that was about 250 yards away now. Once again, I readjusted for the next clearing. Finally, it was set up right and the deer was walking right into the scope. Tim and Dad whistled louder again to try and stop him. I knew from before he likely wouldn’t spook, but he wasn’t going to stop either, and this moment would likely be one of the last at a good, standing shot. “Do it now,” rushed through my mind, and the next thing I knew, I heard the bark of the rifle, watched the deer lunge, and the thought, “Holy crap! I did it!” flickered through my mind. Tim and Dad were shouting. I let out a sigh as we watched the deer leap forward a few times and fall. “You just got one big buck, Tessa!” one of them yelled. Caught up in the moment, we sat there for a moment before Dad started down the hill toward the hill and Tim and I packed all of our stuff up. When dad reached him, he looked back and gave us a fist pump and I could see his grin from atop the hill. Tim repeated, “Yep, you just got yourself one big buck!”

A few people now have told me that my first deer will likely be my biggest deer. That’s probably true. They ask, “Now what are you going to do,” but the answer is actually pretty simple.

I set out to get a much smaller deer than what I shot, and I won’t necessarily remember him for his size, but the time spent with my brother and dad. Other deer I shoot might be much smaller, but I know they’ll introduce me to new challenges. I also had a lot of help from Tim and Dad, so I’ll have my own challenges to face as I strive to become more self-reliant.

So what am I going to do? The answer is pretty simple: Hunt.

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Spotted En Route to Meet Tessa	Wish I Had a Whitetail Tag!	The Approach
The Claim	A Good Specimen	Another Look
Impressive View	Even More Impressive	My First Buck
The Photo Session Begins	Very Nice	Looking to the South
Lots of Character	A Slight Tilt	Proud Dad
Proud Brother	Proud Family	Can't Be Too Proud Can You?
I'm Selfish...My Turn	Getting Ready for More Photos	Tessa's First Tag Job
Step One	Step Two	Step Three