Pennsylvania Game News - August 2009 - 9

ted a patch of white — the huge buck was lying dead on his back, piled up against a stand of beech saplings. My shot had connected after all, and I tagged my second buck in just two seasons of hunting — a handsome 9-point to join the forkhorn from the previous year. It was just 1973. I would still need eight more multi-pointed bucks to fill out my complete set of ten. I couldn’t know it back then, but it was a mission that would take me another 34 years to accomplish. Number Ten But at long last I finally did complete the Countdown. It was Pennsylvania’s regular 2007 archery season and I was hunting a Chester County hardwood ridge littered with a heavy mast crop, piles of acorns that acted like magnets for the local deer population. In fact, every morning that I hunted from that stand, I watched legal (but smallish) bucks feed directly beneath me. I could have filled my tag on a variety of racked bucks, but still waiting for the big one, I held off. The early morning of October 23 was no different. In the predawn darkness I could hear deer munching their breakfasts directly beneath me. The sun rose to reveal two little spike bucks gorging themselves on acorns ten yards from the base of my beech tree. One moved off, but the other loitered there for the first half hour of daylight. I pulled a new grunt call from my pocket and tested it out just to see how the spike would react. At the sound his head snapped to attention and he looked around nervously for a few moments. A couple minutes later, I played the same trick on him again. This time when his head came up he fixed his nervous stare on something behind me. I’m not sure I could credit my calling, but I glanced over my left shoulder to see a swollen necked bruiser with a rack full of points sauntering toward the spike. I raised my Hoyt Razortec compound and drew. I grunted again and the buck stopped broadside just 15 yards away. I released the shot AUGUST 2009 and the buck lunged away. A few seconds later I heard a crash and thought I saw him go down. In the meantime, the unfazed little spike continued to casually chomp a mouthful of acorns. I waited for a half hour and located the dead buck exactly where I thought he had fallen, just 60 yards away. The strangest thing was where I found the arrow. Despite the broadside shot I had taken, the arrow shaft had entered the buck high on his back and straightaway, just between and forward of his hips as he turned to flee. The broadhead, nonetheless, had found his vitals as the shaft angled down beneath his shoulders. The alerted buck had badly jumped the string, and even with an arrow speed of more than 300 feet per second at a modest range of 15 yards, the point of impact had been dramatically altered. I was lucky the unintended result was so immediately fatal. I admired the buck’s antlers and took inventory — 10 solid points. At long last I had finally killed an honest to goodness 10-point. It had taken me 35 years and countless hours of hunting during which I tagged 25 bucks (and, yes, I got skunked 10 of those seasons), but I had finally completed my Ten to One Keystone Countdown, all legal Quaker State white-tailed bucks collected with a combination of rifle, shotgun, flintlock and bow and arrow. My total count to date: One 1antlered spike; two spikes; one 3-point; two 4-points; three 5-points; one 6point; four 7-points; nine 8-points; one 9-point; and one 10-point. There’s just one problem — somehow I’m not content to rest on my Ten to One Countdown laurels. Now I’m compelled to attempt part two of the task and tag my first 11-point, as my quest for antler points 11 through 20 commences. But don’t look for that sequel any time soon. It could take awhile. 9

Pennsylvania Game News - August 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - August 2009