Rich Akin

The stillness of the 5 degree biting cold was once again faintly interrupted off in the distance. Was it the last few beech tree leaves rattling in the slight breeze, or was it still another fidgeting gray squirrel? Not this time, I had heard this sound before and knew it was an approaching Whitetail! It seemed to be coming my direction, but the 3 inches of fresh fallen powder muffled the sound of the leaves crunching. Then, through a stand of hemlock trees, I caught the movement of a deer and almost instantly noticed that there were also horns!

It was the middle of November, the 3rd weekend of hunting for the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. My father and I had taken the four hour drive up the night before, for a four day hunt from my oldest brother Gary’s cabin. He had recently purchased 30 acres of woods that bordered 1500 acres of state forest. His research of deer take statistics led him to buy in this north-western region of New York. Ironically, the terrain is very similar to the middle-east part of the state from where we were born and raised. As kids, Gary, myself and two other brothers, were instilled with the basics of how to hunt and fish from our Dad. Everything we did it seemed ,was a competition. The best athlete, the biggest fish, the biggest buck etc…. This competitiveness, on more than one occasion has produced some very “interesting” situations! Bragging rights are a very important thing between these four boys and their Pop!

Gary and I , over the years, have spent countless mornings and afternoons both in the woods and on the stream. These excursions have produced many stories and tails about how things went so right and more often than not, how things managed to go #!*#!!%! I do not have the time nor really the desire to elaborate further into these topics! However, I should mention that on one very cold ice-fishing trip, He became the first and to my knowledge the last known individual to successfully slide 13 inch yellow perch 45 feet across wind blown ice, and have it drop back into the lake through a 13-1/4 inch hole! Yes I had caught it and yes it would have been the biggest that day and yes he blamed it on the “wind”.

We were very excited last night , with the anticipation of today’s hunt. We discussed the approaching rut, the morning watch and the amount of aluminum cans we were helping to recycle with great enthusiasm. Dad however, chose not to take an early watch because his “slightly” arthritic hands would be hampered by the cold. It was then decided that I would take the stand that Gary planned for my Dad to be in. He had seen a lot of traffic coming in and out of this area as well as some scrapes and trees and had only recently built this new tree stand. I felt confident as I crept through woods and climbed into place. Now, as I tried to follow the movement of the buck through the hemlocks, I realized as looked out in front of him, that I was not going to get a clear shot. As I followed him through the scope of my .35 Marlin my arms began to weaken. He would only take a few steps then stop, look around and then take few more. It was amazing how cautious he was and how excited I was. I tried not to keep looking back at his horns as he made his way along. Finally, he would go no further. He had made it to my tracks in the snow that I had left an hour earlier. Now what do I do?

He could bolt out of sight any second if he winded me. I tried to think what my dad would be doing now, knowing he was supposed to be in this stand anyway! After a long 10 minutes of looking around and trying to wind something, he simply turned 180 degrees and started walking back from where he had come from. Knowing there would be no shot available in this direction, I had to do something. I began to make a grunting sound and noticed he immediately took an interest and began walking in my direction! I didn’t know what my “grunting” sounded like, but he kept right on coming. The Marlin was in place and all I needed was for him to come another 15 yards and there would be the opening I was waiting for. When he stepped into the alley, I put the crosshairs of the .35 right where I had on all the other deer I had taken with the gun and squeezed. He bolted and took off with a charge through some open hardwoods to my right.

What happened I thought? Why didn’t he go down? The only positive thing I had noticed was that as he ran off , his tail was tucked down tight. My dad had always said that a tail down was a good thing. And, although he also said to wait five minutes after the shot, there was just no way! I got down from my stand and rushed over to his tracks and found where he was standing when I had shot. Nothing! No blood, No hair! I was overwhelmed with the fact that I had somehow missed such an easy shot that I had so patiently waited for. As I walked in his tracks and continued to see no sign that I had hit him, I began to loose all hope and anger at myself started to set in! @!%!? shooting skills @#!%!& suck!!! Gary, who had heard the shot and in his words my “unorthodox” style of grunting was on his way toward me. He wondered what I was doing as he noticed I was still venting my anger and would not answer him when he called. It was just about then that I heard him say “nice buck”. I said yeah “he was”, he said “he is, he’s right here”, and he pointed to the ground!

I ran up to him and saw the buck I had shot laying there with an almost perfect eight-point rack! It was probably the most awesome moment in my hunting career, made even more so by the fact that Gary seemed as happy as I was. Together we field dressed the buck and quickly dragged him back to the cabin. We couldn’t wait to show dad and tell him what stand this one was shot from. To date, there have been three bucks that have been shot in our family that have made it to the taxidermist. Of course, we can’t seem to agree on “who’s got the biggest”, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next season!

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