OK Buck

[ruffcountry]

A friend invited me to hunt on his farm land in western Oklahoma if I would take his 9 year old son along with me . The boy has taken a interest in the outdoors and my friend is not much of an outdoorsman . I scouted a likely looking spot behind his house , crp land with tall grass and in the middle a nice grove of trees and brush . I noticed several trails coming from the trees through the grass to the farm land where winter wheat was now growing and corn and soybean had been harvested earlier in the fall .

 

We set up on the edge of the field just inside the tall grass in the late afternoon and waited . A cold wind blew in our faces as we scanned the grass , watching for deer to come toward the field . We were on a kind of a terrace between the field and the crp land and had a good view across large area of grass up to the brush and trees . The sun slipped below the horizon , 30 minutes left , it was that magical time of day as the wind eased and owls back in the trees began to hoot . Suddenly , there he was on the far side of the grass , looking like a giant as he angled our way . I looked him over through my binoculars ,not much antler but a whole lotta buckskin . I set up my rifle on the bipods and got prone . I thought he was getting close enough for a shot and I was solid . He stopped broadside , the crosshairs were in the middle of his shoulder , the gun boomed and I seen him react through the scope , it looked like a hit . He went immediately out of sight behind a terrace on his end of the field . I watched through my scope and saw no sign of movement . My hunting partner asked " Did you get him ? " . I thought that I had and I replied " Lets go see " . We began walkin toward the spot where he had last stood and about halfway there it began to occur to me that maybe he was farther than I realized when I took the shot . As we neared the spot where I expected to find him , instead I seen him limping slowly on the other side of a narrow but thick line of trees and brush . He hadnt seen us but as I rushed to find a gap through the trees to shoot through he did see us and began to run . I knew he wanted to get back to the trees he came out of earlier before the shot and lucky for us , we were between him and them . He came running out into the crp field headed for the woods where he would become extremely hard to catch up with , I took a shot offhand with him running , hurriedly I bolted in another and as he closed on the trees I fired again . I didnt see him anymore , I walked over and there he lay . I had broken his front leg with my first shot and my third and last had hit him in the back of the neck .

 

At the check station he weighed 165 lbs field dressed. Maybe because of his large size I had misjudged the range and my first shot hit approximately 12 inches below my point of aim . He must have been about a quarter mile away . I am just glad he didnt escape wounded .

 

My Oklahoma hunting partner . Next year he will be elgible to buy tag , too .

 

My first Oklahoma buck .