By Les Teel

Alabama pastor Les Teel and the buck taken in January from a notoriously unlucky stand.

It was a very cold Sunday afternoon on Jan. 20, 2008, and most sane people were watching football on TV.  t there as, lking to my deer stand and thanking God for long underwear.

I got into the stand at about 4 p.m. It overlooked a small eenfield in the middle of a briar and brush thicket. All I saw for the first hour was a chilly looking cardinal. He was ing a lot of chirping, no doubt trying to keep warm. Shortly after 00, the cardinal ew away and the sun ducked below the horizon.

Then I heard igs breaking in the thicket across from the field. ulled off my right glove and got my ndy dandy little Remington Model seven stainless 7mm-08 into the ready position. Within a minute or two, the buck walked out to the edge of the greenfield and presented itself as though it ruled the roost.

The buck stepped out a few more yards as I watched through my 3x9 Nikon scope.  was uly what we consider a shooter buck in this neck of the woods. Its thick rack went straight up, curled ward and oked like a crown; it was a majestic creature.

The buck stopped at about 70 yards, angling slightly toward me. I put the crosshairs squarely on its left shoulder, squeezed the trigger and sent a 120-grain Remington hollowpoint on its way.  The buck reacted like a bucking bronco, cking up its hind legs before it took off like a rocket across the e tch, heading into the thicket. ortly after it disappeared, I heard it crash — and en all was silent.

I packed up my stuff, got down and walked out to where I saw him go into the brush. The tracking wasn’t difficult. It had run about 30 yards from where I shot it before piling up out 10 yards inside the thicket. I s anxious about all the points I saw on the rack, so I went back and got my hunting ddy, Louis Johnson, and let him do the counting.

Louis termined at I had “kilt” myself a 15-pointer. I said, “I’ll settle for that!” So 15 points it is. Many of the kicker points can’t  seen on the photograph, but they are there — nine on the left and six on the right.

By the way, to my knowledge nobody had ever seen a racked buck out of that stand in four years of hunting it. e once-infamous “See-No-Buck-Deer-Out-of-It” stand has now en officially renamed “The 15-Point Stand.” I guess this particular stand was just saving  its points, if you know what I mean.

This article was published in the November, 2008 edition of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine. Join today to have Buckmasters delivered to your home.