After about 3,700 miles added to the GMC, a couple of notched tags, and a few lonely days on the road interrupted by some hunting trips, I finally decided to come back to work.

I left VA 9Nov headed for north central NE to hunt a private ranch near the town of Thedford. It’s a 5,500 acre cattle ranch of sandhills and riverbottom. The landowners' niece is a good friend of mine, and she got me permission to hunt the ranch. Her kid brother Jacey lives in Thedford with their recently widowed mom Linda. The loss was hard on all the kids, but especially 13 year old Jacey. He has never gotten to deer hunt, so I was excited to be able to take him to try for his first deer. Meeting me out there was my good friend Jake, from Colorado. I hunted my mule deer last year with him in CO, and he was after a nice whitetail with me in NE.

Opening morning found us in the sandhills looking for mulies. I was interested in a decent mulie or a big whitetail, Jacey would shoot basically anything, and Jake wanted a nice whitetail. There was another group of hunters blasting away in the river bottom, so we stayed away and did a lot of hiking and glassing trying to locate bucks. About mid morning as we are glassing, I spotted a whitetail buck chasing a doe across the river bottom. These deer were across the sandhills, across the house, highway, and on the other side of the river. They were a loooong way off. But we could tell the buck was a good one, and we watched them go into a big thicket and never come out. We watched for a while, and decided that we would abandon the sandhills and try to sneak in there and get Jake his whitetail. After a lengthy hike back to the truck we head out, but before we get far Jacey spots a small mulie buck on top of a hill. We drove the truck a little ways on the 2-track as the buck ran off, but figured he wouldn’t go far. We made a plan, figured out the best way to stalk, and sure enough, we were able to find the buck in his bed on an opposite hillside. Jacey crawled to the edge of our hill top, got set up prone, and steadied his grandpa’s old Remington 760 pump .257 Roberts for the 200 yard shot. The buck was still in his bed, but Jacey’s shot went a little wide and just missed the buck. He stood up, looked around wondering what happened, when Jacey put a perfect heart shot on him. The buck jumped and took a few steps, I told him to keep shooting, so another perfect shot anchored Jacey’s first deer. I’m not sure if Jacey was as excited as Jake and I, but he was a pumped up kid! After tons of pictures we taught the young man how to field dress a deer, but I was nice and gave him a pair of dressing gloves to wear.

After getting the buck back to the house, Jacey and Linda headed out to check it in and take it to the processors. Jake and I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed across the river to try and locate the buck and doe we spotted earlier. We hiked halfway up a deep cut sandhill to blend in as best we could, and glassed down into the thicket trying to locate the deer. We would glass, then move about 20 yards, sit down and glass some more, trying to pick apart every twig from every angle. Finally Jake spotted the white stripe on a does nose bedded behind a bush so thick she might as well have been underground. I still do not know how he spotted that deer. It took me several minutes and my spotting scope to finally find it, and I knew exactly where it was. We couldn’t find the buck, so we kept sneaking around, trying to get a little closer and find the buck. The hillside we were on was a big crescent shape surrounding a big thicket, and finally as we got closer to the edge we knew we had to find the deer soon. Sure enough, as we were standing glassing a new spot I heard Jake say “there he is!” and he sat down and shouldered his rifle. I was looking several hundred yards out across the flat into the thick trees, but the buck was 75 yards from us at the base of the hill. The .300 Win mag barked and the buck jumped and tried to run, but he was hurt bad, and a 2nd running shot put him down for good. Not only can that Colorado boy see, but he can shoot too. It happened fast, and it was exciting, and now Jake had only his 2nd whitetail ever, and by far his best. A nice Nebraska 10 point lay waiting for us to claim him. To spot that deer from such a long way off, sneak in there and find him, and get him put on the ground was awesome. Not the kind of whitetail hunting I’m used to. After that great of a first day Jake and I headed to the local steak house to celebrate with a couple of cold beverages and rare steaks.

That left 4 days for me to fill my buck tag, so I wanted to be pretty selective. I wanted a big Midwest whitetail or a nice mulie. Though we found tons of deer, tons of bucks, I was never able to get within rifle range of the big boys. On the 2nd morning we spotted a couple of mulie bucks ¾ mile or so away, and went after them. But by the time we got there they were nowhere to be found. I think they were the elusive tunneling mule deer I’ve heard about. We found a smaller 3x4 buck, but he wasn’t what I drove 1,700 miles for. The sandhills are very interesting to hunt in. those deer have basically endless hills, valleys, pockets to hide in. and its impossible to check them all.

The 3rd evening we were back in the sandhills looking for the big mulies again, when we spotted a lone doe. She was a long ways off, but pretty close to one of the pasture roads, a good freezer filling opportunity. Jake went back to get the truck and make the big loop driving around, while I made a stalk on the doe. I cut the distance to 150 yards before she got so nervous I was afraid she’d hop away, so I settled my crosshairs, squeezed the trigger, and the 7mag added one more deer to the freezer.

On the 4th day we found a nice 9 point whitetail, and using my grunt call I got him almost within bow range, but he just wasn’t quite what I was looking for, so I let him walk. He was the best buck I let walk on this trip.

On the 5th and last morning we found a big 10 point whitetail bedded up in a thicket. He was over 500 yards away (I couldn’t pick him up on my rangefinder) as we were on top of a big ridge looking down into the riverbottom thickets. We made a plan to get close with very little cover. We snuck in close, set up shop, and waited him out. I had 5 different bucks within 50 yards that afternoon, but never the big boy. A hot doe ran through as well, and every buck we saw was on her trail. 2 of them stopped to lip curl. They would leave and go into the thicket, and I’d hit my grunt call or turn over my can, and here they’d come right back. It was amazing how well I could call those deer. One of those bucks would have been a shooter but he only had half a rack. The other side was either busted off just after the brow tine, or just grew in that way.

In those 5 days of hunting, I called in more whitetails than I have in the last 5 years combined. It was amazing, and tons of fun. I have a pack rack magnum instead of rattling antlers, a primos buck roar grunt call, and the can from primos. I rattled bucks in, grunted them in, canned them in. I also use a Montana buck decoy; that helps a lot with the rattling. I pulled in a small 4 point to 30 yards, and Jake and I were just sitting on the ground nearly in the open. I got some good video of that little guy. I think I might could have coughed in a buck there. I have never seen responses like that to calls, the rut was definitely in full swing.

Instead of leaving on the 6th morning, I hunted for a few hours. Jake headed back to Colorado and I headed to the ranch. I just couldn’t admit defeat just yet. I went back to the riverbottom thickets and saw several more smaller bucks, but not the big one. The last morning was probably the most beautiful morning I’ve ever spent hunting. The temperature was a balmy 8 degrees. Everything had a heavy frost, and as the sun started to rise it caught the steam coming up from the river, mixing with the first rays of sunshine, in a white icy background and big cottonwoods trees silhouetting it all. Unfortunately my pictures do not even come close to what I saw, but it was absolutely amazing.

I left Nebraska with my buck tag still intact, but that’s ok. We got Jacey his first buck, a memory that hopefully stays with him forever. We got Jake his first nice whitetail, and I have a doe for the freezer (which I brought in the back of the truck with me). I got to spend several days hunting with a good friend and great hunter, and I had a great time. We hunted hard, put a lot of miles under my boots, and I'm looking forward to hunting with Jake again in the future.

After a couple days in the truck, I made it to southwest TN to see the family for Thanksgiving, and of course, to be in time for the opening day of TN rifle season. I have not missed an opening morning since 1991, and Dad has only missed one since 1968. He was elk hunting in Arizona, so I’ll give him a pass for the ’05 opener. Opening week was pretty slow in TN. The weather was hot, rainy, and windy. We had lots of rain, thunderstorms, but I did manage to see 2 shooters. On Saturday morning a big buck ran a doe right by my stand. He was moving too fast and the trees were too thick to shoot, and no matter how much noise I made he never even flinched.

Tuesday evening I was out enjoying the drizzling rain, but started seeing some deer activity around 3:30. After a couple of small bucks passed by cruising for does, I heard some rustling in the wet leaves behind me. I turned to see a wide rack attached to a buck chasing a doe around. I ripped off my scope covers, got turned around in the stand and grunted at the buck to stop him as he was chasing the doe down a ridge and out of my sight. He stopped, but was facing directly away from me, so I wanted to wait to see if he would turn broadside. He didn’t, he followed the doe down the hill and out of sight. Luckily the doe ran back up the ridge top and he was right behind her. He either saw me or my decoy as he stopped dead in his tracks facing me. With a squeeze of the trigger, the 7mag collected another deer for the freezer, and some nice antler for the wall. The buck has short tines and a weak g2 on one side, but is 18” inside. I did not see another decent buck all week, and Dad had worse luck than I did. I hunted sunup to sundown for most of the week, the deer just weren’t moving for us.

I finally had to put the camo away, load up the truck again, and make the final drive back to Virginia and reality.

Hope y’alls hunting seasons are going well.

The smile worth the entire trip


Jake's 10 point whitetail


looking down into the riverbottom, and across the endless sandhills


relaxing and glassing..


and finally, my TN 8 point
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