John had been here in the woods for close to three hours. It was a chilly 22°F, unusually cold for an early October deer hunt in south Alabama but John had come well prepared and was covered in full camouflage with a big thick camouflage jacket on. To complete his gear and make him fully undetectable from the deer, John sprayed himself down with cover scent.

The woods were deadly silent. There was no breeze blowing around at all. For the last few nights, there was a small moon which didn’t allow the deer to feed as much during the night and this forced the deer to become more active during the day. John set his tree climber up in the perfect spot. He was down in a bottom that was very clear and had oak trees surrounding him. There was a clearing about forty yards long right out in front of him and, considering he was hunting with a bow rather than a rifle, this was good news. Everything seemed perfect-the weather was right, the set up was right, but the deer simply weren’t coming by him. All afternoon John had been staring at the leaves on the trees with no sightings of a deer. It was near 6:00 and it was getting close to being too dark for John to make an accurate shot with his bow. All of the sudden, the action picked up fast.

John heard a few crunches of dead and decaying leaves back behind his right shoulder. He turned slowly and watched a huge 12 point buck slipping through the woods behind him. Within a second, John’s heart started racing. He started shaking all over and, for a minute, couldn’t even attach his release to the bow. But finally he calmed himself down saying, “You only get one chance at this…better make it count.” It seemed like an eternity before the buck came in close enough to present John with a shot. John was counting each step the buck took past his stick that was the thirty yard mark. At seven steps past the thirty yard mark, the buck stopped and turned broadside. John had already drawn his bow and was following the buck through his peep hole. When the buck stopped broadside, John’s instincts kicked in. He put the pin right behind the buck’s front shoulder and squeezed the release sending the arrow fly clean through the 12 point buck.