Guy's, Thank You very much for all your interest as well as help with the score. I'm actually going to contact the Taxidermist and see if he can either measure the main beams, if not I'll pick up the antlers. I wish I could say that I took the buck with my Black Widow recurve as I do love to hunt with it but as you will read, I had used my Excalibur crossbow. I have to admit that I still had buck fever in the worst way after taking the shot and will never forget the moment. Here is the story, I hope you guy's enjoy it. I Shot this buck on Wednesday, November 7, 2012 at 4:30 p.m.. I had heard him crashing around chasing a doe for approximately 30 minutes. All of a sudden a nice mature doe came out of the honeysuckle and was going to go down the path where a large scrape lies 15 yards in front of me. I was perched in Nick's { My Son's} old Loc On ladder stand from which he had taken his big Illinois 10 point on November 13, 2001. I was only 10 feet high so she kept looking me over. I then heard the Buck grunting and watched him approach from 30 yards away. The doe was very suspicious of my presence and I remained frozen in place hoping that she did not spook, luckily she didn't and went on her way. The buck kept coming and he too gave me a hard look and then went on his way. When he let his guard down I raised the Excalibur and let him get perfectly broadside as he was once again focused on the doe and had forgotten about me. From a seated position I place the cross hairs right where they needed to and shot him tight behind the left shoulder. He ran downhill, following the same path that Nick's doe had ran the first week of the season and at 60 yards crashed hard into a tree actually taking a large chunk of bark out of it. With his white belly now facing me, he kicked his leg's a few times and all was over. The arrow was a 2216 tipped with a 100 grain Slick Trick Magnum and once again did a great job. What a relief it was to actually see him crash and not have to sit around waiting and worrying if all went as well as I thought that it had. After calling Nick and Patty {My Wife}with the great news, I shakily climbed down out of the stand and decided to go and have a look at him. Well, I was quite pleased as there was no ground shrinkage with this one. His neck is massive, actually with a larger circumference than several other very good bucks that I had seen while at the taxidermist. I actually have several trail camera pictures of him from late summer, early fall in which he was about 3/4 of a mile away and hitting the acorns pretty hard. That pattern changed once the acorns were all consumed and the rut phase began. Now I had to wait for Nick to come out and help me as this big guy would have been quite a challenge to get out of the woods by myself. He made it to my house at 8:30 p.m. as he had been babysitting. I thank him sincerely for his help and great photography as I know he had a hard evening since little Dominick {His Baby} is teething and had screamed all night. After a lengthily photography session it was time to get down to business. After opening him up and removing the entrails an autopsy was in order. The Slick Trick had taken both lungs and clipped the top of the heart on it's way through him before burying into the ground. With this now completed it was now time to load him onto the 4 wheeler, tie him down, and take him home. He was a handful to get up and onto the rear rack so I am once again thankful for Nick's help. Upon arriving home, Nick pulled the quad into the shed and we called it a night as it was now 10:00 p.m. and he had to get home as he had work in the morning. After a semi restless night due to be all fired up I loaded him into the bed of my truck, this was very easy as I just backed the 4 wheeler up to the tailgate and pulled him right off the quad and into the bed. I arrived at Annie and Paul's Taxidermy in Clymer, Pa. at 11:40 a.m. Thursday morning, Paul caped him out as I didn't feel like it due to the price being the same either way. I brought the remainder of the buck home, hung him in the shed from the gambrel, and finished the skinning, ect.. I will cut him up Friday or Saturday, I'm in no great hurry as it's been pretty cold this week. To sum things up, I 'm pretty happy as well as lucky due to the fact that it was in the 70 degree range the fourth week of the season and rained almost continually during the fifth week. I was getting worried to say the least! I bowhunted a total of 22 days and actually saw 22 deer from stand all season, with 4 being bucks. Also, this deer was taken on public land. Hope everyone enjoyed the story as much as I did being able to write it.
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