By Mike Giles
With the rutting activity nearing its peak in many places in this part of the state, most hunters are heading to the woods with a renewed sense of optimism and hope. Up until now many hunters have only seen does and too few of them in some cases. This week the tide is turning as buck activity is increasing exponentially.
Young Mason Wooldridge headed for the woods as soon as school and basketball was over for the holidays and started scouting and hunting for that big buck. While hunting near Collinsville this week the young Daniel Boone honed his scouting and woodsmanship skills while searching for a buck to grace his wall and dinner table.
He didn’t have to scout long to find the perfect stand location. Wooldridge found an area that was hot with deer sign, buck sign particularly. One or more rutting bucks were leaving their territorial markers and calling cards everywhere, aka scrapes. Once the West Lauderdale Middle School student found that the area was being visited by several bucks he made plans to match wits with the deer.
On his way
Rising before dawn early one morning this week the excited youngster got his gear together and made his way back into the woods near an area that he had hunted before with success.
Once Wooldridge got into his stand it was simply a matter of waiting for the dawn to break and the does to arrive, hopefully with a nice buck in tow.
Sure enough, shortly after daybreak, does started filtering into the area. The does fed and meandered around his stand area and started acting strangely, or out of the ordinary. Actually they may have been acting normal for does coming into heat. But young Wooldridge didn’t know exactly what was up with them at the time.
As the morning wore on the does became more nervous and jittery and Wooldridge began to get excited as he knew something was amiss. The does weren’t spooked and hadn’t been pressured so he was sure that something was about to happen.
Sure enough another deer began approaching and entered the Kill Zone. A nice buck slipped into the area with antlers shining like a neon sign. Once he got in the area of the does the buck began laying down more sign and getting ready for willing does.
By now the old buck was leaving his own signposts by way of fresh scrapes and rutting scent in the area. The scrapes were a warning to any other bucks in the area and a come hither call to any available “hot” does.
Time to act
After what seemed like an eternity but was really only a few minutes the buck finished his business and started moving on in search of a hot doe.
The moment of truth was fast approaching. But would the young hunter have what it took?
Wooldridge raised the rifle, centered the crosshairs on the buck and slowly squeezed the trigger of the Harrington and Richardson .444 handy rifle. Pow, wap! The roar of the rifle and the sound of the bullet impact exploded a near deafening silence that led up to the shot. The young hunter had indeed made an excellent shot just as Daniel Boone had done many times in his youth.
Wooldridge had outwitted an eight point buck and harvested his best deer to date! And the youngster was back at home before 8:30. It just doesn’t get any better than that!
Contact Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or e-mail him at Giles1958@bellsouth.net
