Whew weeeee, there’s a lot to unpack in this thread, but I’ll start with the above (and probably won’t be back to this thread for the next 9 days or so as I’m dropping my wife off in the morning and heading west, lol).
Mid 90’s in SC. 2 day draw hunt on a State Park. Scouted a couple weeks early and found great sign. No….GREAT sign, lol. Climbed a tree the first morning and had a gangly dogwood leaning over blocking my shooting lane. Sat all day and told myself I was cutting it down and hauling in out when I got down that night.
Came back the next morning and climbed the same tree. When the sun came up the same dogwood was still blocking what I deemed to be my shooting lane. Got distracted by killing a doe the previous evening and had forgotten to deal with it.
I couldn’t think of anything BUT that tree so at 0800 I climbed down to get rid of it, lol. I stepped off my climber and saw movement about 120-150 yds away. Turkeys. Well hell, no way I can cut the thing down with lout disrupting them so I sat there waiting on them to feed out of sight. Then here he came. Main frame 12 with mass, tine length and symmetry. A giant. And he stopped 18 yards away. The problem was the turkeys had made it to me and I was amongst them. He was broadside with nothing blocking a shot, but there was a hen between me and him about 6 yards from me. She was staring at me, I was staring at him and he was staring at her.
I had an arrow nocked and my release on the string, but I was not drawn back. I thought about going for it, but didn’t. After a few minutes of waiting on something to give he turned his head forward and started walking. The hen looked his way and I drew back, put my pin on his shoulder and was tracking him as he walked. Slowly walked…..
I had made up my mind to shoot him in an opening beyond a cedar tree. He got to the cedar and turned right, eased down into the creek and crossed out of my life forever without offering a shot.
I let down then laid down. Turkeys freaked out and left. I was devastated, lol. Packed my sh….. stuff and left. And I still forgot to cut that ****** ****** tree down.
I could have shot that fool anywhere I wanted to in the first 20’ while he was walking and just didn’t. Because he was moving. Big mistake. Still remember that morning like it was yesterday.
Now he’s the second largest deer I’ve ever seen alive in SC, but the other was from my truck. During the 2 or 3 days I was awake after that morning I did the math over and over in my head and decided that deer would green score 158”