12/08/2025
Rich Tom connects in Illinois November 20, 2025... Congratulations!
Fishing….thats what I was doing when this old buck came in.
You see, after 43 years on this world, your vision goes to crap, and you have to wear glasses. I dropped my glasses when I was climbing and like every good hunter, I had a rope and makeshift hook.
Well, if your trying to find your glasses when your 14’ up in the air, you’re not going to see your glasses at 530 in the morning. With some AZNredneck thinking. I said “use your phone and zoom”. So picture me using my phone 14’ up in the air trying to find my glasses with a flashlight and the zoom of my phone. Im thinking like I tell my daughter, “look for something out of place, a straight line, a flicker of an ear, or a tail.” Then bam! I spot my glasses and put the phone away and 100% committed to getting my glasses because I’m starting to be blind without it.
When all the sudden I hear him sneak in behind me. I quickly turn the lights off, and try not to move. I’m trying to get a look at him through the dense fog that we have had the past couple of mornings. I see a wide rack, a big body and said yep…ranged him at 35 yards, and adjusted my slider to 35. He stood still quartering away from me and with my Mathew’s monster chill r, I let my maxima red, tipped with a Zeus hybrid Broadhead fly.
Thwack! I hear the arrow hit and see it in him while he runs.
I steadied myself and took my usual pictures of, where he came in, where I shot, and the last place I saw him go.
I get packed up and know, that I’m going to have to do some tracking as I didn’t see him drop.
I give it some time and I go and start to look for first blood. I assumed, he went to where my buck last year went, and that’s where the trail had led me to, till it just stopped.
I back tracked and found he had leapt and went to tall grass. More back and forth, and more tracking. I go through another finger, and another patch of tall grass and now back through into timber.
This now leading to public land. Through a lot of thick brush, I’m still finding drops here and there and then blood on two sides of the trail. I get all the way to a creek and lost blood. It just plain old disappeared.
I’m at the edge of a creek with about a 7’ drop off. I’m not liking what I’m seeing and I back track multiple times to see where I could have lost him. I sit at last blood and then, a familiar smell this time of year. A stinky ruttin buck. So I’m now thinking ok he has to be close. I walk back and start looking ahead and then finally looked down.
There he laid…wedged 4’ from the bottom of the ridge, and 3’ from the top in thick thorny brushes and briars, with my maxima red still sticking in him, and my flashing knock still flashing.
Now the fun of how I’m going to get him out of there. As I make a few phone calls, I realize this is going to be a long day. I find my way back out and run into a rabbit hunter just pulling in and we get to talking and he offers to help. What are the odds of that. Someone above was looking out for me.
With his help, we hoist this 185 pound field dressed deer out of the creek, on to my deer sled (the kids sledding sled) and a couple of bungees and I’m off dragging 100 yards back to our property where I drove to load him up.
5 days of all day sits paid off, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome without my glasses.
PSA You carry a back up release, and other back up items, maybe it’s time to start having a backup pair of shooting glasses……
