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Anderson: With bit o' luck, novice hunter bags big ol' buck
Article by: DENNIS ANDERSON , Star Tribune Updated: November 4, 2011 - 11:50 AM

Lefty Gomez was one of baseball's greatest pitchers -- and wackiest. Four times in the 1930s he won 20 games for the Yankees, and he still holds the World Series record for most wins (six) without a defeat. "El Goofo" was his nickname, and he once held up a World Series game to watch an airplane pass overhead.
But nothing about Gomez has endured so much as his witticisms. "The secret to my success is clean living and a fast outfield," he once said. And, "I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish."

Gomez also is credited with originating an axiom that remains true today: "I'd rather be lucky than good."

Blake Citrowske would agree. He's hunted deer for only 20 minutes of his 23 years. But each of those minutes was lucky.

In that span on a recent evening, employing a hand-me-down 1980s vintage bow, and an arrow he bought at Wal-Mart, he killed a monster buck that tipped the scales at 242 pounds, field-dressed -- a whitetail far bigger than all but a relative handful of the nearly 500,000 gun hunters who will be afield this weekend will stumble across.

"Swamp Donkey," as Citrowske and his pal Andy Eha named the big buck, brandished 14-point antlers that measured more than 180 inches -- record-book bound.
"Andy gave me his old bow, and I bought some $5 arrows and $6 broadheads at Wal-Mart to go with it," Citrowske said. "I practiced target shooting for three days straight. Because the bow didn't fit me, I had to aim 2 feet below the bull's-eye to hit it.
"It's crazy how I had to compensate. But I got pretty good with it."

Eha, a seasoned archer, had used trail cameras for three years to sneak peeks at Swamp Donkey as he sauntered in and about Ramsey, near Anoka, moving almost exclusively at night. Then, on Oct. 20, at 4 p.m., he, Citrowske and another friend headed into the woods with their bows. This was Citrowske's debut hunt. Never before had he been in a tree stand.

"I'd only sat there about 15 minutes when I heard a twig snap and a crash in the woods," Citrowske said. "I knew right away it was a deer. Not two seconds later, just 50 yards ahead of me, out pops a very familiar face. "It was Swamp Donkey. And he was walking right for me!"

In a lengthy written account that recalls some of the great travails and triumphs of Odysseus, Citrowske penned what happened next:
As Swamp Donkey made his way in my direction, I waited for him to get just on the other side of a small tree so I could pull back my bow. He did, I did, and as I lined up my sights, he walked right into it, and stopped. I spent about one more second making sure I was going to place the right shot on him.
Then I aimed just behind his left leg, held my breath and ...

Recall now our friend Lefty Gomez. "A lot of things go through your head when you're going in to relieve in a tight spot," he once said. "One of them was, 'Should I spike myself?'" But Gomez never did. He always reached back -- and delivered. So did Citrowske.

... I released the arrow. I heard the infamous 'twang' of my bow. And in a split second, I directed my eyes from my bow sight to his face. In that same split second, he looked up at me, as I heard the slap of my arrow pass through both of his lungs.

Just now, hundreds of thousands of hunters are, or soon will be, motoring toward deer camps pitched in the woods from Warroad to Worthington, Ely to Elysian.
Many are sporting types who have exactly the right equipment and more than enough savvy to bag a wall-hanger buck this weekend.
At what they're about to do, they're good.

But on these first days of the deer season, when fortune seems to cast her favors so randomly, they have to ask themselves:
Would they rather be good? Or lucky?

In 1934, Lefty Gomez went 26-5, with a 2.33 ERA, a feat rarely equaled. Yet even he knew the answer. So does Citrowske.

First, last and always, be lucky.

Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com

When I was 17 a friend asked me to take him deer hunting so we got him fixed up with a loaner 30.06 and spent two weekends getting him used to it and to where he could hit a 3" paster at 100 yards.

Opening morning we set him up in some trees in a draw while a couple of us still hunted the side hills nearby. After about 1/2 an hour I heard a shot and about 2 minutes later a second shot.

I worked over to where he was waiting and asked him if he had got one. He replied "No, two of them." We walked up and he had a forkhorn and a 3x2 on the ground 50 yards away (Ca A zone had a 2 buck limit then). Apparently both bucks just wlked up on him while he was waiting and the 3x2 just stood there looking at the forkie when Ken shot it, so he shot it also.

While we (I) were cleaning the bucks, Ken says "There's some pigs" and I looked up and there were about 8-10 wild pigs walking down the draw about 75 yards away. I told him to shoot one so he killed a 100 Lbs sow.

In his first hour of hunting he killed two legal bucks and a pig.

A few years back, the outfitter I have hunted elk with in Colorado had a guy from Ohio book a hunt for the first rifle elk season in Unit 421. I was up there as camp help and waiting to hunt first week of the second season. This guy gets in a day early and we get to talking and he is all excited about his first elk/mule deer hunt in his life.

He talked about having wanted to do a hunt like this for the past 35 years, but because of family responsibilities, he just had not been able to get things worked out. Now he had his chance to live his dream. I had taken him out to the gun range the afternoonm he came in to check his rifle and he was pleased with the eway it was shooting.

After the usual first night in camp before opening morning, we get up and get all the hunters set out and the guide crew heads up country to do a drive for the opening mornings festivities. Now this guy is using a model 99 Savage in .308, and according to him, he has had a lot of good luck with this gun back east.

We start the drive and I hear a few shots. As the drive finishes up I ease over th where this guy is set up andfind that in the first 30 minutes of his first elk/mule deer hunt that he had been planning for, for 35 years, he had killed a small 5x5 bull and a nice 3x3 muley.

Those are the kind of stories that'll bring a smile to most anyone's face!

Last year I shot a really nice whitetail at all of 30 yards from the stand. I'd been expecting to take a shot out to 300 or so.

About 12:30 or 1 in the afternoon, having eaten lunch in the stand, used the "facilities", and gotten a bit of shut-eye, I suddenly realized I'd better keep both eyes open if I wanted a chance at a deer.

About then I turned around, and nearly fell off my chair when I saw this big buck walking behind my stand - clear in the open, not 30 yards away (the stand is in the middle of a cow pasture with beautiful cottonwood trees).

I now have a new-found appreciation for Lucky Gomez's axiom - "I'd rather be lucky than good!"

Thanks for the stories, fellas,

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