When a Plan Comes Together by Greg Kurdys

Greg Kurdys

The early October weather was ideal for a comfortable sit up in a tree stand. The skies were partly cloudy, there was just a subtle breeze and the Fall colors were beginning to make their appearance. Unfortunately, the deer didn’t seem to be out trying to enjoy the weather. I had only seen a lone doe about an hour earlier. I noted the sun dropping below the trees and knew I would not have much longer to absorb view. As dusk began to diminish the colors, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if my spouse had sent me an update on her plans. She was attending a political event that evening. I slid the phone back in my breast pocket and looked out across the small food plot. I stared disbelievingly! Standing right in the middle was the target buck for the season. I had not seen or heard him approaching, but there he was. He was feeding in my direction about of forty yards away. I slid left in my seat to facilitate drawing my bow. The shooting angle was not optimum, and the distance was still a bit farther than I prefer. As if on command the buck took a few steps to his right and was standing broadside about thirty yards distant. I drew the bow and settled my second pin behind his shoulder. I concentrated on my mechanics and keeping the bow level. I slid my index finger over the release trigger and gave it a squeeze. In the growing twilight I could not follow the arrows flight, but the sound of it striking its target was clear in the quiet evening air.

I’ve hunted around the world, but there is no more satisfying hunting experience than walking out your back door to enjoy an outing chasing the game you have worked to develop. I wrote in Tracker last year about my five-year effort to improve the habitat of our property here in SW Michigan. Part of that plan was a personal goal to take a large mature buck on my own place. In previous years, I had taken several decent bucks, but had yet to find one of those cagey old ones that had been around a few years. This past June I had noted a nice buck that seemed to hold potential. He clearly was big bodied, and his antlers grew notably each week based on trail camera photos. The photos also revealed an apparent pattern. He seemed to be feeding in a neighboring corn field at night, and spending his days buried in a section of wetlands I reserve as sanctuary space. There were a couple clover plots along his route, and he was stopping to graze in them regularly. I decided to give the buck a name. I dubbed him Sledder, because he spent a lot of time at the bottom of a steep hill used for family sledding. As summer waned, I began to define a plan to hunt this particular deer.

On opening day of the archery deer season, I wanted to get out into a stand, but realized the wind was not good for targeting that Sledder’s domain. I hunted the opposite side of the property and was rewarded with visits from several does and a young buck. For the next two days I had commitments that kept me out of the field. On October 4^th my wife had an evening event, so it was a perfect chance for me to get out hunting. As I ambled along the grassy two-track on the short walk to the stand, I was noting it was relatively easy to keep my approach quiet. I dared to fantasize about that buck giving me an opportunity on only my second time out in a stand.

As the arrow struck the buck he jumped toward the closest cover. He didn’t clear the edge of plot before he crashed to the ground. His momentum carried him a bit farther into the trees. but he fell still a short way into the cover. He was just a few feet from the two-track that skirted the field. I climbed out of the stand and eased my way across the food plot, picking up my arrow as a went. I approached at the ready, but I was confident the buck was done. I was correct. I had outwitted Sledder.  Even in the darkness his body size was obvious and the white of his antlers glowed in the rising moon.

I left the buck and walked back to the house. I dropped off my gear and grabbed my UTV to drive out to my barn. I slid open the barn door and climbed up on utility tractor. I cranked the diesel engine to life then made my way back to the food plot. I positioned the front loader just uphill from the buck at the edge of the trees. When I grabbed the buck’s antlers to drag him toward the tractor, I was happy it was a short haul. It took most of my strength to wrangle it around a few saplings to the edge of the front loader bucket. With some additional energy I wrestled him into the bucket. I was thankful for the tractor as I knew I could not have hefted him into the bed of my UTV let alone drag him a third of a mile!

At the barn I rigged a scale and lifted the buck. His feet were still on the ground, but the bucket was as high as it would go. I climbed down to look at the scale. It read 230 lbs. The other nice thing about the tractor is that it facilitates the field dressing process, and I finished in short order. A nighttime temperature of about 47 degrees was forecasted, but it would be a few more hours so I made a trip to our local country store and grabbed some bags of ice to pack into his body cavity. It was 10 pm when I made it back to the house to warm up some dinner. My wife arrived a few minutes later and when I told her I had shot Sledder, she took the UTV out to the barn to look him over. She returned and asked me what I was going to do for the rest of the season since I had achieved my goal. My smart aleck response was that I would sleep in and stay warm! But then I said, “Well you never know there might be a bigger one out there!”

I don’t know how many years that I have left where I can still draw my bow and climb into tree stands. I hope a few more because in the back of my mind a plan is emerging to make this an annual challenge, and we all love it when a plan comes together!

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