Josh McCullough displays his opening weekend buck taken in Lauderdale County. Wayne Bryant of Wayne's Taxidermy scored the 18 point buck at 178 5/8 inches on the Buckmaster's Composite Scoring System for his local contest.

    As opening day of bow season neared Ricky and Josh McCullough’s anticipation grew steadily and reached a near fever pitch in the hours leading up to opening morning. A trophy buck was spotted sometime during their pre-season scouting and continued to visit their camera site on a regular basis thereafter. The father and son team located a core area that was home to several deer, one of which reached magnum proportions.

    “We spotted the deer earlier in the summer and I really wanted Dad to get him,” said Josh McCullough. And that’s almost what happened as Ricky McCullough went to the woods on opening day and took a crack at the old buck. “Dad tried him first and sure enough he got a shot,” McCullough said. “But his arrow hit a limb and glanced slightly off track and the buck trotted off.”

    “Dad said the buck wasn’t alarmed and went back to feeding a short distance away,” he continued. “You might only get one opportunity at a buck like that and then its over.” Needless to say they were relieved to learn the deer wasn’t spooked by the first arrow shot at him.

    The following Sunday morning Josh joined his dad in the woods and took a seat about 20 feet up a tree before dawn. Not long after daylight a doe crossed the trail where the hunters walked in and snorted over and over. McCullough wondered if his day was over, but had no choice but to wait and see.

A Glimpse    

 

    About an hour and a half later around 8 a.m, McCullough spotted movement to his right and slightly out in front. A glimpse of a buck’s antlers made his heart beat a bit quicker in anticipation of the deer’s appearance in the open. Shortly thereafter a small 4 or 6 point buck came into the clear and McCullough relaxed a bit.

    Staring intently in the small buck’s direction McCullough caught sight of movement behind the first deer. In seconds “Big Daddy” stepped out into the opening and stood stone still for a few minutes at a distance of 50 yards, just outside McCullough’s kill zone.

    “I recognized the buck immediately because we’d been watching him all summer,” said the excited hunter. “The buck moved from right to left staying about 50 yards out as he circled to the left”. The deer continued to move intermittingly as he stopped, watched a minute and then began walking again. Stop, look, listen and then walk again. The old monarch had lived through many seasons and was obviously on full alert in this, the early days of bow season.

    The buck stopped in an old grown up log loading area and was at ease, though on high alert as any trophy buck should be. Finally the trophy made his way across the opening and stopped just short of the thicket.

    Two more steps and the buck would be in the safety of the thicket and gone, perhaps forever. “I lasered him at 45 yards but probably shot the bank behind him,” said McCullough. “I put the 40 yard pin on him and released just as he turned broadside.

 

Doubtful Shot

     I felt good about my release but the string hit the inside of my arm and the shot didn’t feel good and I lost sight of the arrow,” he continued.

    “I thought I’d missed him, although the deer jumped like he’d been hit.” With a feeling of dejection now settling in on him McCullough rested a minute and texted a friend, telling him that he’d just missed the biggest deer of his life!

    Inspection of the area where the deer stood yielded nothing, not even the arrow. McCullough turned and looked down a slight opening where the deer had run and spotted his arrow about 10 yards away.

    “I saw the arrow broken in half and saw a lot of blood and got excited,” McCullough said. “I decided to trail the blood to the edge of the thicket a short distance away and then stop before bumping him.” As he stopped at the edge of the thicket, McCullough detected another splash of blood.

    Stopping a moment to survey the blood trail McCullough looked up and spotted the buck laying motionless a mere 35 yards from the point of the initial Rage broadhead’s impact. “The buck was truly the trophy of a lifetime and it sported 18 points and scored 178 5/8,” said Wayne Bryant of Wayne’s Taxidermy.

Contact  Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or e-mail him at mikegiles18@comcast.net