“Wide Guy”

The 2012 bow season brought with it many anticipations and hopes. During the off season leading up to the 2012 bow season I was able to spend more hours in the woods that I would be hunting through spring turkey outings, summer scouting, and hanging a few new stands with my brother, Nicholas, and good friend, Steve. We had several nice bucks on film with the season approaching and had stands available to hunt nearly every different wind on travel corridors. The opening day of the season brought success to Steve as he arrowed a nice eight point as he traveled under his stand only a couple of hours into the season. Warm temps followed the next couple of weeks and although Nick and I both had several encounters nothing was put on the meat pole. The last night of September brought with it a perfectly still evening and I decided to hunt a stand near the house. This particular stand we had hung early in September and I had scouted extensively with plenty of deer sightings and a few bucks that we had labeled as “shooters” would show up fairly regularly. This particular evening two small forkie bucks browsed in front of my stand and chased one another around. I watched these two young bucks for nearly forty minutes when I glanced to the north where I spotted the buck that I immediately identified as the “Wide Guy.” –This particular buck I had seen a few different times on camera over the past couple of years, but hadn’t seen him ever in person, but there was no doubt in my mind which deer it was as his very wide spread easily gave him away. I had estimated him to be 6.5 or 7.5 years old based on photographs and always said that I would shoot him if I ever had the chance even though he wasn’t necessarily the highest “scoring” buck in the woods.

As Wide Guy approached he seemed to hang up right at 70 yards or so. There was absolutely no wind, but this buck seemed to be relying on a sixth sense that only older bucks have, which seemed to be telling him that something just wasn’t right. After a couple of minutes the curiosity of this buck appeared to overtake his sixth sense as the two forkies chasing one another around brought him towards me. As he approached I readied and drew my bow as he stepped into an opening slightly quartering away at 22 yards. I released the arrow and I watched its flight and it connected right through the lungs where I settled my pin. Wide Guy took off in full force and within a few seconds he was gone and I didn’t hear anything. I waited about 45 minutes, got down, found my arrow coated with good blood, and marked blood that appeared to be coming out of both sides within 50 yards of where I had shot the buck. I decided to head back to the house, wait a couple of hours, and hit the track with Nick and Steve. We also called Mike Hack, who had indicated to me that he would like to get his “blood tracking dog,” Paul, in on a track. Although I didn’t think the buck had made it far I thought it’d be a good training exercise if nothing else for Paul and elected to get Mike and Paul in on the track as well.

Two hours after I’d shot the buck the four of us (and Paul) hit the track. I showed Mike and Paul the blood I marked and the two of them took off down the trail immediately. Only thirty yards into the track Mike and Paul continued down the deer trail that Wide Guy was on even though the blood trail veered off distinctly to the left. The two of them finally came back after heading the wrong way for over a hundred yards and Mike asked where last blood was. I showed him and any confidence I had in Paul was already out the window. Additionally, I thought to myself, “Who names a blood tracking dog “Paul” anyways?” After staying on the blood trail for about 75-100 yards the blood absolutely stopped. We spent the next couple of hours gridding the area and searching the thickets and covered ever trail to no avail. We found absolutely no further sign of Wide Guy and gave up for the evening. Nick asked Mike what his thoughts were regarding the blood trail and Mike simply responded, “I am not God.” -This was apparent, and also apparent was the fact that Paul was not God, Doggie-God, or even as much as an ok blood tracking dog. Needless to say, it was a long night for me as my mind flashbacked to the hit and I was dumfounded with what went wrong and a mix of anger and sadness climbed through me for the night. Andrea tried to ease my mind by making a few jokes about the situation, but I was still sick. I thought about the plan I would take for first light the next morning. As the sun came up the following morning I found myself back at last blood and once again surveyed the area and re-walked the area looking for any sign of Wide Guy. Once again, I found myself in the same situation as the previous evening as no sign showed up. I walked a deer trail that led to a walking path that navigated my property. I decided to walk this path in its entirety in hope that I would cross paths with the Wide Guy or see signs of him. This proved to be wishful thinking as nothing showed up once again. From this point I decided that going back to the last blood was now futile and I made the decision to walk the stream bed that goes along the north end of my property as I knew from past history and instincts that it just seemed to make sense. After walking the stream bed and criss-crossing the stream several times and searching through deadfalls and areas that felt like possible bedding locations I spotted a set of big deer tracks paralleling the stream along the sand edge for about ten yards. At this point I felt like a hand was on my shoulder guiding me and although I didn’t see any signs of blood I just seemed to know or believe that this was Wide Guy’s tracks and went into a thicket off of the north side of the stream that just felt like an area where he was. Only thirty or forty yards into this thicket I spotted a tip of an antler sticking up from the weeds and I knew exactly what it was. I thanked God immediately and made my way to the buck. I was by myself, but felt like my father-in-law, John, and God were both walking with me to the Wide Guy. I looked the buck’s bed over and there was very little blood in it. I also backtracked his trail to the stream and found nothing. Upon field dressing the deer I determined that he was hit square through his right lung and liver. His chest cavity was filled with blood, but bled very little. Interestingly enough, Wide Guy also had an abnormally large heart. I pulled Wide Guy out of the thicket, across the stream bed, up the ridge and back to a gate on my property. Although this was tough work it sure didn’t seem like it. I was so happy and thankful for the way that this had worked out. –It could have gone about a hundred other ways, all of those leaving Wide Guy in the woods, but some perseverance and some guidance from above brought this story to a much happier ending. I made a couple of phone calls on my way out of the woods with Wide Guy to Andrea, Nick, and Steve letting them know the great news. I also pulled myself together and chuckled as I called Mike Hack and asked him if Paul knew how to pull deer. –I couldn’t help myself!