Friday was a beautiful day, minimum wind, a lot of deer movement, but no shootible bucks seen.  Saturday was a day taken off by me because Sara, my grand daughter, had a beautiful, baby girl, another great for me!  So, Suzanne, Rebekah, Wesley and I ,drove over to Killeen to visit with Sara and the newborn.  The picture shows a proud Great Grand Pa holding Callyn Elizabeth.  As we were driving over, Randy, however, went out Saturday morning and even after sleeping in, saw at least 10 doe and yearlings.

A funny thing happened on Randy’s way out to his blind to hunt on Saturday afternoon.  For no real reason, he took this “shot” of a big deer track and he followed the tracks all the way past the tripod stand he would use to later shot a deer.  Sunday morning this distinctive track would be instrumental in finding the buck!

Later Saturday afternoon, this was a different story.  Randy saw a big buck, he texted Laura with a “Shoot or no shoot,” she asked me the same and I told her to text Randy and ask, “How big and was it limping?”  His reply was, “No to the limp and 4 inches outside its ears.”  My reply to Laura was, “Shoot!”  He did, his .243 boomed, but we later found out that the shot was about 3 inches low, plowing into the bucks lungs, but not a knock down, kill ‘em on the spot one.  Telling Laura to text him with, “I’m on my way with the tractor,” I walked outside and about the same time the “norther”, with a cold north wind was howling!

Bundling up, then starting the tractor, I chugged toward the blind and upon arriving, found Randy looking for the deer.  Apparently his shot had not felled the buck on the spot.  We looked in one direction and the other, finally, it was almost dark, after about 30 minutes, we found where the buck had gone down, with a copious amount of blood on the ground then we knew the shot had been a killing one!  Following the blood trail, it led us to our property fence along the County Road and we assumed that he had jumped over.

Meanwhile, Colton had shot a nice doe, had cleaned it and was on his way to a big date.  This was the big doe that Wesley and I had seen on Wednesday afternoon.

Back to the tractor, back to the house and we drove around to the spot the buck had cleared our fence, no blood, but there was a splash on the other side of the road where he jumped the neighbors fence, cutting across her pasture.  It was after 8:00 PM, it was getting plum cold too, so we figured to wait until morning to continue the search.

Sunday morning was real chilly, 37 degrees, Randy called both neighbors, the lady wasn’t home, but Lester, my neighbor to the southwest said we could hunt for the buck and he would come out and help us.  Going on into town for Sunday School, I announced to my class that we had a buck down and were still looking for it, so by acclimation, the class said for me to forgo today’s lesson and, by all means, find the buck!

Picking up Spike, our wonder Dachshund and having 5 Grandkids, Suzanne, a good tracker, Randy, who is color blind and can’t see the blood, and Wesley, who with Spike ultimately found the buck, we all drove around to Lester’s gate and awaited his arrival.  Letting us in his pasture, he went around to get his big 4 wheeler and by then, Randy, Suzanne, Wesley and Spike were burrowing through the thick stuff, following the blood trail, the trackers lost contact with Spike, then breaking through the briars, in a small clearing, Wesley spied the dog guarding the deer, a nice 9 pointer, with a 16-1/2 inch inside spread.  The “shot” of the trackers shows the thick stuff Wesley crawled through, Wesley missing, was taking the picture.  Loading up the deer, Lester was nice enough to drive the buck around to my house so Randy and Will could begin the clean up.
    
Success was ours, a real team effort, after 14 hours we found the buck, with the cool weather, it was still cool in the middle of the day on Sunday, the meat was good and pictures taken.  We persevered in our hunt for the buck and it really paid off!