ORIGINAL: TC209x50

Well, my season thus far has been good and bad and today proved to continue that trend. Our Opening day here in Ohio was terrible plagued with near monsoon conditions.The second daywas the start to an awesomeday for our gun season with near perfect conditions. Equipped with the 50 cal. Encore loaded with 245gr. Barnes spitfire I silently slipped along the four wheeler path easily gliding along the forage floor in search of the great moogly goggle. About 45 min. into my quest I had reached a depth into the interior of the timber to within 100yrds of where I was to begin my final descent into the greater metro whitetail area when a nice doe stepped out 40 yards right out into the open. I wasn't in search of the hornless creature and I suddenly found myself into a game of I move my head to see if you still look funny to me. It wasn't long that I began to notice she was looking to where she came to see if she was still being pursued, but ah by what was it the great moggle goggle or something else. After about 2 min. of this game she was playing she went on up the hill, 2 min. after that a creature that had two straight pins sticking out of the frontal area of his forehead came out and decided he wanted to continue the game that the doe had abandoned. He gave in allot quicker acting like he had something else on his mind. Now knowing this spike wasn't the only buck in the woods that would be in pursuit of this little hottie I decided to wait for awhile to see if my instincts were correct. About 10 minutes later he popped up over a bluff trailing and was within 25yrds and he picked me up very early being that I was crouched down in the middle of the road. This is were it gets serious, his vitals were covered by some saplings and I wasn't about to take a chance on a bad hit but I could see he was about to make his great escape. But to my delight the brains of the outfit upstairs had delivered a memo to my trigger finger and the viewfinder placed in the center of my face that there was an opening directly in front of his vitals if he where to take just one to two steps in the direction he had positioned himself in preparation for the great escape. Taking the advise from upstairs I positioned my cross-hairs in the clean void and decided when he bolted I would squeeze as he past. When the smoke cleared no buck was to be seen, after waiting sometime I eased down to the scene of the crime to see if the Dept. upstairs was correct in their calculations. To my surprise they were actually correct for a change the viewfinder's had quickly picked up good brown colored hair. Not wanting to push him I gave him plenty of time then began the search which is where the real serious story begins. I've hunted a long time and been fortunate enough to take some pretty nice bucks but this guy had the fire in his gut to show me just how tough they can be. There was a blood trail for about 250 yards that was clearly a straight through shot that blew blood out both sides.Ray Charles could follow this blood trail then heturned uphill and it began to go to nothing then just drops. He then turned back downhill and went into a thicket were he stopped bleeding all together. I lost it now no blood trail, the bleed out everyone talks about. Now this is where true dedication takes on I'm not one to leave a deer hurt on a lack of effort on my part. My dad and I did most likely searches the rest of the day covering all areas of 280 acres that he would of likely of made it too. Not coming out for lunch or resting for very long, nothing was found. The next day I had to work getting off at 4:00 I raced home due to a constant gut feeling that he doubled back and tried to make it too the thicket that we last had blood. At 5:00 Dad had signaled me here he is laying within 40yrds of the last sight of blood and both of us was within 20-30 yards from where we recovered him 2 to 3 times earlier the day before. What we believe happened is Dad had spotted two deer one bigger than the other leave across a field about 200yrds from there and we suspect he was the bigger, then he circled and came back to get into that thicket again dying that close to us. The time of recovery was 33hrs the meat was no good but I owed the deer my tag it was the ethical thing to do and the honorable thing to do.The deer hadallowed me to pursue him. His death will at least have honor and his own hanging place on the wall with the rest of the collection. The shot was directly through his liver taking a little bit of the front of the stomacharea, thus the cause for all the blood so quickly. The total ground covered was approx. 850-1000yrds with a hole clean though him directly in the center but a little back further than I'd like to have seen it. He must have got a head start on the trigger finger. Anyway I was glad to recover the deer and know I didn't just go out and feed the coyotes! Hope you've been entertained by my story, happy hunting and don't ever give up he's always just up over that last knoll.