As I headed out for what was likely my last hunt for the season, I was hoping my luck would turn and I could finally connect with a nice animal. I had taken a nice meat hog off our lease in Llano and missed an opportunity on a mature doe at Oran Hill’s place in Burnet County. Still after more than 120 hours on the stand and more than 30 deer in bow range, I had not had an opportunity on a mature buck. As I pulled into the lodge at Sweetwater Creek (65 miles from Downtown Dallas) I was pumped to change all that.

    Sweetwater Creek, in Wise County, is about 900 acres under a high fence with plenty of native whitetail, hogs, and some exotic animals as well. The ranch is dedicated to bowhunting only and as you can see the accommodations are excellent!

    When I met Jim Bob and his son Michael Little at the TTHA Extravaganza, I knew I would have to hunt with these folks. They are good people and they run a great operation.

    I hunted the tripod they call the "Aoudad stand" on the South end of the property. Shortly after sun-up, I had a pair of whitetail does walk in at 6 yards and then feed 20-30 yards in front of me for 30 minutes. They were young deer but very healthy. The harvesting of does is not part of the management plan for a while but I really enjoyed the show.

    9:00 AM and after 3 hours in that tree, I was starting to freeze! I slipped down from the ladder stand and sat on the top of a ‘shelf’ over looking a small open meadow. I sat in the sun and warmed up while I glassed the edge of the timber across the meadow for any movement. Confident the coast was clear, and a little warmer, I slipped across the open area and into the woods below.

    I worked my way back to the lake area without bumping up as much as a rabbit up? When I got to the lake’s edge I found out why. Every animal in the woods was already there! The water is low and the animals were all grazing along the new shorelines on the fresh vegetation. At either end of the lake bed there was a group of whitetail doe, 8-10 deer each. Directly across from me were 4 fallow doe and a nice white fallow buck with dark horns. His rack was tall with a nice wide spread. He was too far away to judge his palmation and there was no way to cross the dry lake bed and get a closer look without alerting one of the groups of whitetail. I sat it out ‘til the fallow left out the other side of the lake then I pulled back to scout for a place to set up my PaHa Que’ Wilderness blind.

    After finding a good location to hunt hogs at night from my ground blind I turned on the spot and stalk skills. I got the wind in my face and hit the trail. This was the first time I noticed how handy the Catquiver by Rancho Safari really is.

    I covered a lot of ground that morning and I was starting to get hungrier than the last granola bar in my pack was going to satisfy, so I decided to turn the hike toward the lodge. That’s when I sprang a lurking bobcat from his bed 20 yards from me. If I hadn’t of changed directions he was going to lay there in the tall broom weeds and let me walk right by.

    I made it to the lodge for lunch around 1:30 PM and Michael helped me set my ground blind up and reposition a tripod by the lake. With his eager help, I was back on a stand by 3:00 PM and hoping to see the white fallow buck again. I decided to let both the ground blind and the tripod we had just moved sit idle at least for the night. I hunted the stand known as the "pig trap" right around the corner from my ground blind.

    I sat there glassing the wide-open pastures in front of me and listening for any action behind me. I began to watch a hawk hunting for field mice in the tall fields. It was 4:11 when I looked toward the feeder and saw a pair of bobcats 40 yards out and strolling along without a care…right toward me! They were approaching from my right so I would have to stand and turn to draw on one. As the front one reached the 25-yard point I made my move. The lead cat stopped in his tracks and I placed my 20-yard pin right above him and cut it loose. My arrow slammed into the ground right above the cat and the duo headed for the timber with…well a little more haste than before. Apparently my buddy the hawk wasn’t the only one hunting in those fields this evening. That made 3 bobcats I had seen in two trips to the woods…maybe I would get another chance at one.

    My heart had barely recovered from that action when he showed up. The buck that I would come to call ’Whitey’ was walking in with a younger buck in tote. I was really able to get a better look at him now. His beams are at least 24" tall and he had good mass on both sides. His left antler was palmated 4-5" with a lot of accent points off the back of the palmation. The right side sprouted points everywhere…everyway. Although the lack of palmation of this side would probably keep him from making the bronze medal class, this was a great buck. His dark horns were very similar to the velvet rack on my spotted fallow from last year and they would look great together. He offered up a shot at 42 yards (Bushnell Yardage Pro rules!) but I decided it was too early in the game to risk that long of a shot on a spooky game animal. This buck was more alert and suspicious than any whitetail I have seen this year. He never got any closer and he never made me in the stand…he just walked away. As he walk across the field into the setting sun…he disappeared into the edge of timber skirting the bottoms 400+ yards west of me, I knew if he offered up a shot he was going home with me.

    I decided to hand toss some corn around the tripod Michael and I had set yesterday and hunt there this morning. I was greeted at sunrise this time by 4 whitetail doe. They fed, played, fought…did everything but decoy me a buck! I had their company, usually between 6 and 28 yards, for the whole first hour of the day. ‘Whitey’ was a no show today though. I did have a red deer spike at 20 yards but I had other plans for my ‘horned animal’ allowance in bag limit.

    Again I decided to ‘still’ hunt my way back to the lodge and at one point was pinned down in the open by two juvenile Aoudad sheep at 60-90 yards. They had me locked down in the middle of the road watching them feed for 45 minutes…hoping they would move closer to me for a better look. I finally tried to creep along the ground toward them. I had to drop where I was when they came out and I had literally no cover. I would lay my bow in front of me, raise up on my palms and toes ‘til I was a couple of inches off the ground, and scoot forward an arm length. Then do it all again.

     I had closed the gap only about twenty yards when I realized that they would not tolerate the pressure any longer and the biggest ram began to stomp and blow like a whitetail. He was waving his horns around and trying to challenge me. I watched him for a few minutes and then I felt he was obviously not getting any closer ‘til he knew what I was. I remembered reading articles by sheep hunters that wear white painters suits and decoy sheep in…and I had once seen a Hawaiian guide call a Mouflon ram in by hitting rocks on the ground to imitate a fight. I didn’t think either ram was a shooter so I thought I might as well experiment. I rose to my hands and knees and slammed my open palm on the ground and returned his challenge…I don’t recommend this approach on Aoudad.

    As we drove in for my evening hunt, we passed a small Axis doe on the right then all the sudden there were 3 more on the left. Then from nowhere, twenty yards off the road, feeding down in a saddle along the creek, appeared a gold medal Axis buck with eye guards that had to reach more than 12". When he heard the Gator he threw his big rack back, which took great effort on his part, and he was off! Moving through the timber and cutting a trail with the whole herd close behind. There were more than ten deer below them and another buck that would probably score well too. I will never forget the grace that big buck had as he maneuvered his 36" horns through the underbrush to flee.

    I made it to my PaHa Que’ blind right at 4:00PM and settled in to hunt. I had almost forgotten about ‘Whitey’ and was wondering which stand to hunt in the morning on the other end of the ranch. I was still dreaming about that Axis when I realized I couldn’t see my pins any more. I rigged up my hog light and waited for a pig to come along. Around 7:30 PM, I decided to head in and get some dinner and maybe come back around midnight and try to stick a pig.

    As I slipped out of the blind, the light of the bright moon showed me the silhouette of a large whitetail bedded in the tall grass. I thought I had walked into a Mike Biggs photograph, I could only make out the one side of the rack but I could clearly see a tall G-2, G-3, and G-4 all sprouting up from the main beam. He was on the ridge top about 80-100 yards away so I would have to slip out the long way to the "pig trap" area and the waiting Gator. I dare not return to hog hunt tonight…I think I will hunt the "pig trap" in the morning. It will be easier to slip into that stand and maybe catch him on the way to feed.

    I slipped into the "pig trap" at about 6 AM and as I could have predicted by now I was covered up with doe before sun-up. I had one deer after another walk right under the stand ‘til I had 7 whitetail doe feeding in front of me. Friday morning it was 2, Saturday it was 4, and now it’s…7? Where’s my other deer? She slipped in a few minutes late, a dark colored spotted fallow deer, and then another and then a light colored fallow doe. I now had 10 deer before me between 15 and 35 yards. What a sunrise! They all fed, played, and chased each other around for more than an hour. I love to watch doe rise to their back hooves and spar with one another.

    The light colored fallow doe must have winded me or seen me adjust on the cold seat of the ladder stand. She started barking like a Chihuahua and hopping up and down…stomping her feet. The whitetail all took her warning to heart and left quickly. The three fallow deer just hopped away with the little one barking periodically. No more living decoys to keep me entertained…but at least I could stretch and shift on the cold stand for a minute.

    I shivered in the shade for another 45 minutes as I watched the fields in front of me fill with warm rays of sunlight. I had almost talked myself into believing that the little fallow doe had spooked everything out of the area and it was time to climb down and warm up a little. That’s when I saw him emerging from the bottoms to my right over 500 yards away.

    At that distance I thought he was a whitetail buck with a doe for a second but my Bushnell binoculars soon told me it was a nice sika deer with a spike bringing up the rear. They were headed right for me and he looked good…at this distance anyway. As he got closer I could clearly see that one side was broken at the base from fighting. This would be the buck that walks all the way in to 20 yards and feeds broadside for five minutes! I was sizing up the ‘safe sika’ bucks thinking, ‘man I bet he was nice…I wonder if Don Ivie at A-1 Taxidermy can rebuild that broken side?’ That’s about the time I noticed movement to my right…it was ‘Whitey’ moving from the thicket behind me toward the feeder. He was alone at 45 yards.

    As he hit the clearing he noticed the sika bucks feeding on hand slung corn 20 yards in front of me…he turned at started their way. Now this might be how the sika got his rack busted, as ‘Whitey’ passed the 30-yard point and moved in behind a tree…the two sika deer, in a show of maximum respect, circled deep into the field and back to the feeder to avoid him. Man I am glad hand tossed corn taste that good! He moved slowly and steadily toward the lane at 20 yards…as soon as he gets there he’s mine!

    Have you ever seen a receiver in football start looking down field before he catches the ball? Then he kinda stands there with that stupid expression on his face as the ball bounces on the ground? As he moved through the cover to my next lane, a lane where I have been shooting deer all morning with my Yardage Pro, I was already debating ‘bleached skull’ or ‘shoulder mount’. As soon as he stepped into the lane I went to draw and he did a 180 and headed back through the cover.

    I completed my draw and held on the other side of the tree waiting for him to emerge…he finally did and he turned back to investigate. He hadn’t seen me ‘cause he was looking around. The wind has been in my favor all day so he couldn’t have winded me. He either heard me or just sensed the danger he was getting himself into. He turned his head back facing the opposite direction and stood quartering away at 30 yards. I settled in with my 30-yard pin low on the back of the rib cage…going for the opposite shoulder. I tripped the release and away it went…and away he went!

    He turned broadside at 60 yards and looked back again to investigate. I saw no sign of blood on his solid white body. I never heard my arrow hit…anything! As he moved across the pasture on the same trail that the sika deer had used to the adjacent bottoms…he sure didn’t look hit. Had I missed from this stand again? I had been shooting a 3-D target at the lodge from 30 and 40 yards all weekend…what went wrong? My heart and head were racing…I set my stop watch and tried to relax while I waited 15 minutes from the time I last saw him before he disappeared into the timbered bottoms west of me.

    As I left the stand I felt confident that it was a clean miss but I needed to confirm it. I searched for several minutes for the arrow or some sign of a hit…I found neither. The camo Gold Tip had vanished into the tall weeds. I stood in the spot the buck was standing and shot the stand with my Yardage Pro…36 yards. It had now been thirty minutes since he dropped into the timber so I began to snake my way across the trail looking for any blood. None.

    When I reached the edge of the timber I search for sign in the area. I had seen him walking around here and if was hit…I would surely see something here. Nothing.

    It has now been well over an hour so I followed his most likely trail into the bottoms and continued to look for sign. I was headed straight to the lodge to report my miss and see if they had a metal detector to locate my broadhead and insure us all that the shot was a miss. I crossed the entire bottom…still no sign of blood. As I topped the ridge on the south end my worries were finally answered. There stood ‘Whitey’ and several fallow doe feeding in the meadow 450 yards away near the ‘Windmill’ feeder. At least I think it’s him…gotta get closer.

    Using the terrain, I was able to cut the distance in half quickly and cuddle up to the only tree between the deer and me. The 6’, naked Oak didn’t offer much cover but I was able to slip off my Catquiver and lighten my load for the next 180 yards. I sat on my rear with my legs extended in front of me and laid my bow across my lap. I scooted with one arrow in my mouth for over 100 yards ‘til I could get a better look. It was definitely ‘Whitey’ and the sick feeling in my stomach was turning to excitement again…the hunt is back on.

    I have now confirmed that not only is he not seriously wounded…he’s not even hit! I began to crab crawl toward them and had closed the distance down to about 60 yards when a small spotted doe, probably the same barking doe from this morning, busted me and moved toward me for a closer look. I shot ‘Whitey’ with the range finder one last time…63 yards. It was over as she is headed straight for me. She closed to 30 yards, spun around, and starts that hopping and barking routine again. Needless to say, I am alone in an empty field as the deer all escape to a thicket below the windmill…I retrieve my pack and head on in for lunch.

    Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I had really hoped to be done by now so I could do those last minute things we men have to do right before important days…SHOP! As I headed back into the field for the evening hunt I decided to corn an area close to where I had seen the Axis deer and hunt there this evening. I did so by noon and decided to still hunt the bottom below the ‘Windmill’ and see if I could locate ‘Whitey" bedded down somewhere.

    I slipped down on the backside of a thicket next to a stand/feeder set up for hog hunting. I could see through the timber, from 60 yards away, that there were fallow bedded in the area around the feeder. With no chance of making it to the stand without blowing them all out, I decided to try and find some cover that would provide me with a shot to the trails below. I set up 40 yards from the feeder but with so much brush between the bedded animals and me, my only shot was too the approaching trail below me.

    There were a couple of young bucks in the group and several doe but no sign of ‘Whitey’. Because I frequently hunt the approaching trails on day leases instead of the stand sites, I was quite comfortable with my position and decided to see what might walk by. I have often found that because of the previous pressure the stands have received, it can be tough to draw from a ‘hot’ stand with several animals below you…sometimes hanging a stand or finding ground cover off an approaching trail can offer better opportunities.

    I put my back against the base of a tree with lots of ground cover in front of me and decided to watch this trail for a while. It was getting late but I was kinda pinned down here by the bedded deer, then the feeder went off and deer began to filter in passed me to eat. None of the deer were shooters but I could hear a group of hogs moving in from a creek bottom on the far side of the deer. I decided that this late in the game if I got a shot on a hog I would take it and move to the stand I had corned by hand for the rest of the evening hunt. I was looking hard to my left for the hogs to come in when I noticed movement on the trail below me.

    I turned to see a group of Aoudad sheep moving in on the trail. On their current course they would pass me at 15 yards. There were 12 of them ranging in size with two nice rams bringing up the rear. Aoudads are sharp animals with keen eyes and good noses too. Even though the wind was right in my face, I knew the probability of all those sheep walking past me at 15 yards to allow me a shot on the trophy rams in the back was real low. That’s when I got my lucky break for this trip.

    The lead sheep stopped to access the situation under the feeder. She was a mature ewe with long horns but, typical of the females, she had no mass to her horns. She was still wondering what to do about the deer when the biggest ram got annoyed like an old man in line at Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve. He came out of the single-file line they had been moving in and stomped up to the front. As he passed the big ewe, he was at fifteen yards broadside. He stomped out a couple of warnings to the young fallow deer and started toward them to run ‘em out. With all his attention focused on the deer, he reached a nice quartering away angle and his sweeping banana horns would be blocking his peripheral vision…I went to draw.

    The big ewe made my movement on the ground but it was too late. The ram stopped for me and turned his head to his right to heed her faint alarm. I tripped my Trufire release and watched the Muzzy tipped Gold Tip arrow slam home. The big ram charged toward the deer and all the other animals in the area disappeared into the thick bottoms. As the ram spun around to join his group, I could see that my exit wound was right on the shoulder and I knew he wasn’t going far. I set my stopwatch and waited fifteen minutes before picking up my arrow and locating the beginning of the blood trail.

    The Gold Tip was covered with bubbles of blood so I knew it was a good lung hit. I found the start of the blood trail a few feet away. He was loosing a lot of blood from both sides of his body. I sat down here for another 10 minutes and then started following the trail. I found the 91-6/8" ROE bronze medal Aoudad about 60 yards down into the bottoms. The ram weighed in around 250 pounds so I had to get some help to get him back to the lodge.