“ THE SKYLINE BUCK”

            I had often wondered just what was it that motivated a serious deer hunter into becoming a dedicated trophy hunter?  Surely there are many hardships and heartbreak along the way, not counting the enormous time spent afield.  They must be aware and accepting that their lot is sprinkled with liberal doses of loneliness, followed closely by feast or famine, there is no other way. It took awhile, but now I understand and accept, so do my two sons, Greg and Fred.  No other creature on this earth is as handsome or as intelligent as a mature whitetail trophy buck.  We may camp together, but it is understood that if any of us are hunting a particular buck, it then would become a one on one situation and if one of us are lucky enough to get a shot we know that even before the echo dies down, there will be a couple of excited hunters here in a flash to help track and drag.  Through the years I’ve put these two guys to sleep many a night with tales and names of bucks that I had come to know through my long scouting sessions.  For instance, “The Pompadour Kid” a buck with such malformed 10” spikes laid back between his ears, what I would be reminded of another era where the gangsters of old used to slick their hair down and comb it straight back.  “Ma Ma’s Boy” a somewhat spoiled eight-point buck that became inseparable from his Ma Ma.  Through the several months that I had observed them, I had never seen any fawns and can only guess that he may have bullied them out of the picture, or perhaps he stuck so close to her during her estrus cycle, that no other buck was able to come between them.  One day while grazing in an open field, Ma Ma’s Boy failed to take notice that Ma Ma had grazed out of sight, when he finally realized that he was alone he panicked so bad that he almost fell down while charging in the wrong direction, by the time he realized that he was following an old scent he was beside himself, he then reversed himself in mid-stride and again almost fell down.  Last I saw of him he was doing 80 in a 30 zone.  “Aim point” a scruffy looking seven pointer who had this little round white circle just behind his right shoulder.  Each morning he would walk by me on his way to bed, and each morning I would draw and aim at his built in target.  Needless to say I didn’t bother to draw on him in the evening as he passed on his way to feed.  There were many tales such as these, but “The Skyline Buck” is the fallen star for which this story was based upon.  Soon after the season had ended my pre season scouting for the following season would begin.  My first order of business was to determine if either of the two, or both trophy class bucks that were known to travel with the trophy buck that I had taken that season, survived.  I soon discovered both had.  As time went by the lesser of the two was to begin a routine that, well… became a routine, so much so that it would naturally gain my attention.  Although this buck was known to be the smaller of the two, (total B&C score wise) he would be targeted because the patterning on him was almost complete, whereas the larger buck left too any questions, namely the whereabouts of his bedding area which was not on this farm.  The name of this game was ‘checks and balances,’ The Skyline Buck had become too complacent and would later prove to be counter-productive to his survival.  My opening morning plan was to intercept him at a point near where he always swam across the river, then when he was distracted by shaking the water off, I would quietly draw my bow and smoothly release, all in one motion, a perfect double lung shot.  Wishful thinking no doubt, that scenario would never become reality.  I was on stand one hour before daylight, I could hear deer crossing the river but I wasn’t concerned about the big guy sneaking through before daylight, it just wasn’t his way.  In fact he usually crossed two hours after first light… reminding me of a girl I almost married, she was constantly a nickel short, and a dime late, but she had pretty legs.  At about 10:30 I began to wonder what could have happened to him.  Two six point bucks were eating acorns just below me and to my left, on the side of the ridge, was a situation that I just love to utilize, especially during gun season, a doe and her twin fawns were sunning themselves.  I need only to watch my birddogs, they’ll let me know when something is coming and from which direction long before I could detect a sound or a motion.  All three heads swiveled around and up at the same time, there stood the buck that should have been down here shaking the water off while I was drawing on him.  It was he who later became known as “The Skyline Buck” he stood in full view looking down at me as if to let me know how he had out-foxed me, and maybe he had.  You ain’t so smart Mr. Lucky, if it were gun season you’d be hanging in a tree, I whispered under my breath.  What the hell are you doing up there anyhow?  I must have mumbled a bit too loud, for all the deer went crashing away except for him, he calmly walked away.  He didn’t show that evening, nor for the next few weeks, I had sacrificed several great opportunities at lesser trophy bucks… that’s what it takes to become a player in this game.  I now became convinced that the big guy had either changed his routine or he had become nocturnal.  I didn’t feel that there had been enough pressure for him to resort to the latter.  I want left in suspense for very long, just as I had suspected, he had changed his travel routine.  After he left his bedding area he had stayed on top of the East/West ridge following that until it met the higher North/South ridge, he then went down the sheer side and crossed the river.  Why had he chosen to change at such a critical time?  I can only guess, it may have been as simple as a skunk having taken up residency near his favorite run, who knows?  Who cares?  Nobody has a lock on the predictability of a trophy buck.  It’ll just re-map my strategy.  I could have set up closer to his bedding and possibly have gotten him, but it’s a known fact that if the bedding area (especially in farm country) is left undisturbed, usually another trophy buck will take over the fallen buck’s bed…that’s like having your cake and eating it too.   Time was running out, once the rut began all of my homework and planning would become unpredictable and possibly miles away.  I never was able to locate his scrape line, it surely wasn’t on this particular farm, and that fact alone reduced my odds significantly during this important time frame.  I would still go through the motions, maybe he or some other big buck might blunder into me while rutting, its possible, but not probable.  One morning at my new stand a huge flock of geese were passing over a tree top height, as I turned to watch the last goose, my gaze fell upon the big buck, he was standing on the very top of the North/South ridge looking down at me, damn you, I muttered, you did it again, you can’t be that smart because you still could have been had with a gunshot, an easy 45 yard shot at that.  Many times I thought of way-laying him somewhere on top of the ridge, but I knew better than tampering with his sense of smell, that’s why he traveled the area, the prevailing winds were constantly to his advantage.  All I could do besides feel a little helpless and a lot foolish was admire his 5x5 rack as he walked away.  Throughout the rifle and muzzle-loading seasons I had made contact with him on five different occasions, ironically he was always out of range…he should have been renamed “Mr. Lucky.”  Then, on the last day of the muzzle-loading season, the only time that he wasn’t above me, he finally made that one mistake that I had been waiting for.  I had been video taping several deer on the ridge and now focused my camera on a couple of does sunning themselves on the side of the ridge.  They suddenly became alert, eyes and ears pointing down and to my far right, I don’t usually ignore such reliable sources, but I had just scanned that area with binoculars, finding only a fawn, plus I had given up hope of harvesting “The Skyline Buck” that season and decided instead to tape some movies to occupy the downtime.  The does persisted, raising to their feet, that type of reaction convinced me that they weren’t reacting to just a fawn.  I followed their gaze with my binoculars, just at the exact moment I focused, “Skyline” walked right into my nearest shooting lane at the base of the ridge, a mere 75 yards away.  But by the time I got him in my scope he was already on the move quartering away from me.  I held my fire gambling that he would enter the next shooting lane, he worked his way up the side of the ridge instead and stopped within 30 yards of my last chance opening.  A very tough but not insurmountable 120-yard up-hill shot.  We both had exchanged one mistake each, now if he made one more he would be mine.  I had mixed emotions at this point, I mean here it was the last day of the season for me and “Skyline” had answered my hit.  Would it be fair to possibly wound him now?  I had to struggle with my conscious, no; it wouldn’t be fair I thought as I lowered my gun.  Thankfully Skyline did not walk into that last chance opening, he simply disappeared over the ridge, I had done the right thing after all.  Oh well, o the bright side I didn’t have too much homework for the following season, I already knew who had and would survive that season, I also knew (with respect) who my worthy opponent would be.  As the long months dragged on “Skyline” more or less stuck to his normal winter mode, then his spring and summer modes.  Then, just before the new season was to begin he started to stretch his routine just a bit by using more of the ridge top before descending, most importantly, he still maintained the same bedding area.  I had high expectations as October 1st approached, then went, as usual “Skyline” didn’t cooperate.  I even relocated my stand several times and as always during the bow season when I did glimpse him he was usually in easy shotgun range, but out of bow range… I wish he would get his signals crossed just once.  By this time I had decided to take the first trophy buck that would qualify with C.B.M. and try again for “Skyline” during the rifle seasons.  My opportunity came on November 7th when I spotted a nice looking buck hot on the tail of a doe, he was an eight pointer with long tines, his width wasn’t impressive, but he was trophy class.  If she didn’t veer, their angle would bring them into very comfortable bow range, but he was moving much too fast, I had to slow him down, I gave him a low grunt that brought startling results as all four of his brakes locked, as he came to a skidding halt.   I saw the unbroken flight of the arrow pass through just behind the shoulder and out the other side.  The buck ran off in the direction my son, Fred, was hunting, although out of sight I could monitor his progress by sound, I heard him stumble, get up, only to stumble again, thrashing then stillness.  Even though I knew that it would take very little tracking to find this buck, I walked up the hill to fetch my son to share this moment with me.  Fred was already coming to meet me, he had heard all of the commotion and had surmised what had taken place.  “I shot a spike “Huz,” (his nickname) he wasn’t going to have none of that.  “I know you better than that Dad,” he said.  Fred got right on the trail, the buck sought out the heaviest path imaginable, it was so dense that you had to wonder how he ever got his antlers through, let alone his big body.  “There he is Dad, that’ll be five bucks please.”  He was a very handsome trophy buck that dressed out at 212 pounds, green score 131.4 Pope & Young.  My quick estimation of his rack while he was chasing the doe had proven to be quite close.  We simply field judge a rack by focusing on the smaller side and add the length of all of the tines except the end of the main beam, if they add up to about a total of 18 or 19 inches, that’s trophy class.  I had about eight days left to set up for the rifle season and it was going to take a lot of work for the change over, especially since I had a new tactic to try on “Skyline.”  I took a chainsaw and cut a path from the mouth of the valley, which runs near an area that I wanted to cover, continue along the base of the ridge.  In effect what I did was appeal to a deer’s sense of laziness by offering him a clear, easy shortcut to the river that is if he left his bed and followed the valley to its mouth.  If he followed this trail he would have to cross two of my shooting lanes, one at 75 yards and the other at 95 yards, before he could reach his river crossing point, which happened to be on someone else’s property.  If I can’t go to him, then maybe I could lure him to me.  Our November 15th plans called for my oldest son, Greg, to come down from Beaverton to share the opening week with me as his cameraman.  Greg was on to another trophy buck in the same area; of course I would carry my shotgun just in case.  My other son, Fred, chose to hunt on another farm, scoring with a beautiful eight-point buck on opening morning.  A few days later Greg took a big nine pointer right under my nose and, shame on me, I didn’t tape any of it.  Why? because a couple of toms had my foolish attention… but I did show up to enjoy and share the successes of my sons.  “Skyline” did show up on the 20th high up on the ridge, best described as a cameo appearance.  Then on the evening of the 22nd all hell broke loose.  Six does came charging over the ridge and stopped half way down, steam flowing from their mouth, then a minute later, six more does broke over the ridge further down; they too were out of breath.  I had no sooner said, “What the hell’s going on over here?” when, “OH MY GOD, look at the rack on that monster!”   I was flabbergasted, that’s a possible state record.  That wasn’t all, to test my heart even further, two more trophy bucks appeared behind him, I ignored them while I glassed the monster.  The more I studied him, the shakier I became, that ’86 Jackson buck which held the state record before it was stricken from the books, held nothing over this buck.  Although I confirmed 3-up (minimum 10 pointer) I neglected to count the points; he had world-class height, width, and most importantly, extremely heavy mass.  Of the two other bucks one was bigger than “Skyline” and the other could pass for his twin.  I wished my sons were here to see what real heavy weights looked like,  (I classify all bucks in this manner, lightweights, middleweights, all the way to heavyweights) then they would understand why I am driven, I live for deer hunting every day of the year.  There stood the king, 300 yards away, the buck of my life, a lifetime away for a shotgunner.  The two lesser bucks broke the stalemate corralling five does, herding them towards me.  Would he follow?  Now eleven beautiful, blue-eyed, blondes were heading my way, one ugly brown-eyed doe hung back… you guessed it, she was the chosen one, the chase began, directly away from me and out of sight.  Had I been proficient in several different languages, I would have turned the air blue with those words too.  While disappointed, I still had two trophy class bucks heading my way and would take either one.  I was tracking them in my scope, and then a few does made their way back to the top of the ridge.  The bucks were still a good 250 yards away, when they too followed the does up and over.  It’s funny how important yardage becomes when hunting with a shotgun, when I used to hunt in Beaverton with a 7mm Weatherby magnum I had no restrictions placed upon me.  Something was happening, the remaining does were becoming fidgety, one doe was stomping her foot, all were staring in the same direction, their full attention was focused down and slightly behind me.  I followed their gaze through my scope and was astonished (to put it mildly) to see “Skyline” at the base of the ridge, right smack in the middle of my nearest shooting lane, a mere 75 yards away.  He stood there looking up at the does, broadside to me.  It took me a few seconds to comprehend that this was the moment that I had been seeking for two years; everything had happened so unexpectedly that I didn’t have time to get nervous; I calmly centered the crosshairs slightly behind his shoulder and squeezed off a round.  At the sound of the shot “Skyline” went charging up the hill like nothing happened, I couldn’t believe it, I must have missed, I injected another slug and swung for the last opening I had, 40 yards into his mad dash he stopped as if to determine which direction the shot came form, he then simply sat back on his haunches, then fell over.  I had barely set foot in the direction of the fallen buck when I saw Fred come charging down the hill; he may have been a star football and baseball player in high school, but today he would have given Carl Lewis or Ben Johnson hell coming down that hill.  Without even slowing down he hollered, “Where is he Dad?”  I only had time to point, and then he was gone.  I like to exaggerate a bit when I tell this story of how the shot barely had time to echo when Fred ran down one ridge and halfway up the next and caught the buck as it was sliding down.  “Dad, it’s an Elk, you shot an Elk.”  When I finally reached them, Fred started beating me on the back and shaking my hand. His excitement told the whole story.  We now had a chance to admire this majestic animal; the slug had gone through both lungs.  After things quieted down a little we backtracked to see just where he had come from.  I was very pleased to learn that once he left his bedding area he had come down through the valley and followed my short cut path, my labors had paid off handsomely.  “Skyline” dressed out at 227 pounds, and his ten points would green score 167.7 B&C.