Don Wilson Buck

Second Chance Published in the Oct. 2008 issue of RACK magazine as: “A Buck Barometer Named Chris” Don Wilson Buck As told to Edson Waite
It was a slow day at work and my partner and I were sitting in the office when my cell phone rang. It was my best huntin’ buddy, Chris Snyder, calling to tell me that the bucks were moving pretty good down in Brown County, Ohio and I needed to get down there ASAP. I looked at my business partner and said, “You care if I take off early and head south for some hunting?” His reply was, “No.” So I told Chris I would be there in two hours. I left work for home, loaded up my gear, and was on the road inside of 30 minutes headed south. “I got there about noon, and since Chris already had a stand up for me to hunt from, we just messed around for a while before time to start out. Then about 2:30, we headed out to stands and I got myself situated and began the hunt,” said Don.
		“It was a quiet evening and all I saw were two does that wandered through just before dark. Nothing else was happening but I sat there till well past dark. I lowered most of my gear and headed back to the farm house, where I found that Chris had already headed for bed. His mother showed me where I would spend the night and then she made me some dinner. After that I headed to bed also.”
Early Saturday morning, Chris and Don headed back out for the morning’s hunt. Don was back in the same stand and settled well before daylight, ready for the action to start. “It was a ‘blue bird sky’ morning with just a slight breeze right in my face, perfect for this stand,” he thought aloud. But nothing was moving and so he continued his vigil into the morning. About 8:30 or so, he saw a doe off to his left and then saw that she was being followed by a good buck. They were far off and just walking slowly, so Don tried his grunt call several times to no avail. Perhaps they were to far away or to preoccupied to care, either way, the pair walked on out of his life at more than a hundred yards distance. “It was disappointing as it was definitely a shooter, maybe the biggest buck I have ever seen,” Don related. “I thought that was the end of that, I was never going to see them again.”
“About ten minutes had passed when I saw another doe, or maybe the same one, come out of the trees a little way from where the two had disappeared earlier. Then I saw a buck come out behind her. It was the same buck. They were headed slightly in my direction so I grabbed my Quaker Boy can call and flipped it a couple of times and the doe started quartering towards me. When she crossed one of the shooting lanes I ranged her at 45 yards, but she was still moving and closing the range. The buck was still following and it also stepped into the lane at 45 yards so I brought my Bowtech bow to full draw and settled my 40 yard pin high on the shoulder and held tight. The doe was headed for a second lane and a tree that I had already ranged at 34 yards. I felt sure that he
would follow and present an even better opportunity. He kept his full attention on her so I stayed at full draw for maybe a minute or two while he moved right past the tree and then stopped. I released the arrow and it hit a little low in the chest. It made a good thud when it hit and the arrow sank all the way to the fletching and hit the front leg on the opposite side,” Don was quite animated now as he continued the story.
		“The buck did the high kick thing and ran off. It stopped about 50 yards away and just stood there looking back towards me, I guess trying to figure out what had happened, what had made the noise or whatever. Then it started to just slowly walk off. It never stumbled or anything, it just walked off. I started getting worried about the shot. There was nothing I could do so I decided to stay in the tree for an hour and a half before I would get down to look. I looked at my watch, it was 9:00 AM on the nose. I sat there a while and the next time I looked it, it was 9:02, and the next time it was 9:05 and the next time it was like ten after nine. But I sat there just waiting till 10:30, probably the longest 90 minutes I ever sat in a stand,” Don stated.
“By 10:30 I had packed all my stuff and I got down from the tree and went over to where I shot him. I found good blood sign, so I followed over to where he had ran and stopped to look back. There were two good puddles right there in fact, so I had made a good shot and got an exit wound too. I followed the trail of blood for probably another 20 yards and found where it had laid down. There was a good pile of blood there, foam blood, so I knew I hit him in the lungs, but obviously, I had just jumped him or he had moved on without my seeing it sometime in that hour and a half.” Don wanted to get out of the woods and wait awhile longer for the buck to get settled down again and die, but he had to exit the same way as the deer was traveling so he was careful and watched for blood as he went. He only saw a few more drops of blood before he lost the trail completely. He then headed back to Chris’s house and the two discussed what they would do. They decided to wait until early evening before further pursuit. That evening they returned to the last drops of blood, and began the search. The two men walked circles for most of three hours until there was no more hope of finding the deer that evening. Dejected, Chris and Don returned to the house. All the way, Chris kept telling Don that they would find the buck in the morning, they just needed to keep the faith.
It was a very restless night for the friends and they were rearing to get back in the woods Saturday morning to continue the search. They returned to the last blood and began circling again, each heading in a different direction. It wasn’t long before Chris hollered at Don, “Come over here and see what I just found.” He didn’t say he had found the deer or anything like that, he just said he had something to show me. So Don, who was quite far away headed over towards Chris. They met closer to the center and Chris produced a 6-8 inch piece of broken and bloody arrow. Chris handed Don the broken arrow and then Don said, “Well you found my arrow, did you find anymore blood or anything?” Chris just looked at me and said quite simply, “Donny, you just killed a 200 inch deer.”
I said, “You’re kidding me!”
	Then Chris broke into a smile and got very excited. “He had checked the deer out and had pretty much already measured him up and came to the conclusion that it was a 200 inch deer,” said Don. “Then Chris took me over to where the deer was laying, and sure enough, there it was. It was really big. Sure looked like a 200 inch deer to me, too,” Don exclaimed! Donny stayed with the deer while Chris went back to the farm to get the deer cart so they could move the deer from the woods to the four wheeler. At the house, Chris told his dad. Chris’s dad ,Steve, was at the house and Chris told him, “Donny killed a 200 inch deer, Dad!”
Steve says back, “Clam down Chris, it’s probably a big deer but I doubt it’s a 200 incher.” Chris says, “No Dad, this is a 200 inch deer. Wait and see!” So Chris comes back with the four wheeler and the deer cart and they loaded it up and returned to the house. When they get there and Steve lays eyes on it for the first time, he looks it over quick and says, “Donny boy, you killed a 200 inch deer!” “It was pretty neat how Chris and his dad were both fired up over up over my taking this deer,” replied Don. “And I never could have done it without Chris and his well placed tree stand.”
Don’s deer measured 187 4/8 inches on the Buckmasters scale with a composite score of 204 5/8 inches after adding the inside spread. Sadly, there were just enough inches of deductions in B&C (9+”) to keep the gross below the 200 inch threshold. Great buck, Don.