![]() Sooner or later, I had to sit down, albeit slowly, and when I did, I heard the larger buck crash through the brush. Now there were four of us, in varying stages of high alert. I also knew that the first two deer hadn’t budged. I knew the larger buck was staring right at me. I froze again, doing a wall sit on the back of the tree, and tried to figure out my next move. And that’s when the really serious buck spotted me-from 80 yards deeper in the woods-and snorted like a Lab with a snout full of Cajun spice. In the deep woods, my showdown with the two deer dragged on long enough that my legs started to cramp, so I uncorkscrewed my torso and eased down toward the tree-stand seat, keeping the trunk between me and the deer. ![]() It’s an electrifying sort of rush, to be under that kind of scrutiny. When a deer knows something’s up, it turns its every sharp sense toward you and dares you to twitch. It took me longer to learn that than it should have. If you shoot the first you see, you miss out on seeing the pageantry of the whitetail woods. I started holding my fire, and what showed up was all the grandeur of deer chasing and running and primping and fighting. Then I started hunting a buddy’s farm where there were good bucks-and more than one or two. For many years, I was more interested in Boone and Crockett–worthy backstraps than headgear, so I’d shoot the season’s first few decent does that showed up and move on to ducks. And no one moved, not even to shuffle hooves or feet, for a solid 20 minutes. It was as if the ground had opened up and spat him out. Suddenly, a small 8-point buck materialized on the path 30 yards behind her. The doe kept looking over her shoulder, so I kept studying the woods in that direction. It’s one of the things I like most about a simple, open ladder stand or climber: If you stay still and if you stay quiet, you’re sometimes rewarded with an intimate perspective into the life of a deer. By the time I twisted around to see what was shuffling toward me, she was only 15 feet away. The young doe had emerged first, from straight behind me. So I eased the rifle down, leaned against the tree, and watched from my stand. Nor did I want to risk spooking one and send it huffing and puffing through the deep woods just as my hunt got started.
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