Taken from a past Outdoor life issue.

"Sometime during the night the rain that had been falling for two days turned to snow. Flakes the size of bottle caps drifted down, clinging to the brim of my hat, coating my boots, melting as they touched the barrel of my gun. I brushed three inches of snow from the stump I'd been sitting on for the past four days and strained to see down through the hardwoods, their upper limbs just begining to take form against the gray sky. Far below I heard the first hollow shots of the morning: two rapid thumps, then nothing. The rising sun brought the days first breeze out of the north, as damp as the seat of my wool pants. I shivered.

I could see the yellow birch snag blackened by fire, the small striped maple scarred by a Moose's antlers in October and the leaning spruce with no limbs on its north side. Countless hours of staring had burned these images into my mind and they swam together as I closed my eyes. My head sank into my coat. And then I started seeing Whitetails. I saw them twitching their tails and rotating their ears as they grazed; I saw them tucking up their legs to clear a fence and pawing down through leathery birch leaves to search for nuts. It had stopped snowing by the time I woke up and the tracks in front of me, a break in the white blanket, couldnt have been more distint. Or any fresher.

Quietly cursing myself, I traced the outline of the hoof with a finger. The pronounced dewclaw, splayed toes and long stride were telltale signs of a good buck. Out of the rut, he was wandering without purpose, dragging his feet, moving high on the mountian where he felt safe. I shouldered my rifle and began running on his track. At first I ran out of frustration; soon I was determined that "I" could run those hillsides too.

Twenty minites later, after ducking fir boughs, slipping on fallen maples and sidestepping chuncks of exposed granite, I wasnt so sure. I slowed my pace and shifted my gun. My legs were already begining to ache. But I kept on. By noon I'd jumped the buck twice and caught a glimpse of his flag as he vanished over a knoll a hundred yards ahead. I threw my coat, drenched with sweat, across the busted angle of a century old stone foundation. I scooped snow into my mouth as I jogged and tried to let it melt before I swallowed. My throat burned and my sling bit into my chest.
My watch read almost three when the buck doubled back on his own trail, ran full tilt for a quarter mile and then turned of the top of the mountian and headed into a dense stand of balsam fir. He'd knocked the snow off the head high trees, leaving a path of green against a white background. Needles stung my face, dead limbs tore at my shirt and snow packed tightly into my scope. I was taking five steps for every one of his.

An hour later, as the shadows lenghtened and my strides shortened, I was still in persuit. The buck was walking again, winding his way through a stand of sugar maples, and I knew he must be tired. I shrugged my rifle off my shoulder, sucked in the cold air and picked up speed. I rounded the corner of a sugarhouse the deer had cleared by inches and froze.

The shot had come from the trees no more than a hundred yards ahead of me. In less than one minite I was standing over my buck, next to an extatic hunter babbling about his good fortune.

"My brother in-law told me this was a good place to wait" he said. "Let me use his rifle and everything. Is this a good deer or what?"

I looked at the eight even tines curving out. "Its a good one, isnt it?" he asked again. "Ive never seen a buck before so I really dont know. Its not bad for my first one, huh! It was funny how he just walked out in front of me, almost acted sleepy." I shook my head."

[ 05-08-2003, 07:48: Message edited by: Wstrnhuntr ]

You are a vey good writer. Is there a novel in your future? Yes pretty much the same thing happened to me elk hunting, except the part about falling asleep. Regards Dan

Never happened to me. I never tried to out animal an animal. Running down a deer? Get real. The hunter who was waiting for a deer to come by deserved the buck because he had the brains to hunt them with the human advantage.

I've pushed deer that somebody else has shot many times. The opposite has also happened. I've also shot deer, and found a hunter dressing it out at the end of the track.

Matter of fact running down a buck was how I shot mine this year. Last saturday of season 2in's of fresh snow. 3hrs later shot the buck coming back on his back trail. I have ran them down more then once. I have also chased them onto other hunters doing so. They have chased them onto me. All part of the game.

I shot my last muley like that. Ran him into a little valley and popped him from a rock that overlooked it. Even with snow on the ground, and me down to my t-shirt, I had to wipe the steam off my glasses to shoot.

My father-in-law walked down a raghorn bull elk this last fall, but that was more of a "follow the track all day" deal.

Never say never. FWIW, Dutch.