Buckmasters Magazine

Getting back to the woods isn’t always easy after losing loved ones.

This is the story of how a deer hunt helped bring a family closure. I am 47 years old and was raised in a deer hunting family. I hunted with my mother and father until the last couple of years when they could no longer do it. They were also involved in getting my daughter Cathy into deer hunting, and were along when she killed her first deer, a 4-pointer, six years ago.

Even though they could no longer hunt, Mom and Dad always wanted to know what we had seen. If we got a buck, we would take it to their place, and everyone helped process the meat.

Everything changed in the spring and summer of 2014. My father got very sick and died on March 27 at the age of 79. My mother did not do well after his death, and she got weaker and died on July 29. She was 81.

A few weeks before she died, Mom showed me a picture of a drop-tined deer in a magazine. She said it would be nice to get one of those. I didn’t think much of it at the time.

When fall came around, all my friends kept talking about the approaching deer season, but Cathy and I couldn’t get excited about it.

I told my friends and our preacher that I didn’t really want to hunt anymore. Going to our deer land and bringing one home without my parents to see it just seemed wrong. The preacher told me he knew how important deer hunting was to our family, so he could understand why it was bothering me.

Then, a week before muzzleloader season opened, I fell asleep on the sofa. I heard my mother’s voice say, “Check the guns.” That was what she always said when it was time to see if they were zeroed in.

Still trying to decide if it was a dream, I got up the next day, set up my target and shot my muzzleloader and my .30-06. I finally felt like I could go to the woods again.

Cathy and I went out Nov. 1, opening day of muzzleloader season. We saw a few does, but not a bit of antler.

The next day I was able to hunt was Nov. 7. I had to go alone because Cathy had school, so I planned to use my treestand in an area loaded with oaks.

As I was heading to the woods, I went by an old box blind at the edge of a field. Mom and Dad had used that blind, and something told me to go there.

I got settled in the blind, and around 7:15 I saw a big buck come out the woods about 75 yards away. It was the kind of buck you don’t have to think about, so I pulled up the muzzleloader and fired.

Through the smoke, I saw the buck spin and frantically run back into the woods. Then I heard a crash.

I waited about 15 minutes, gathered my things and got up to retrieve him. When I got a good look at the rack and counted 16 points, I was shocked.

I just looked up and said, “Thank you!” It was by far the biggest buck I had ever taken.

His right brow tine has three points, just like my mother’s biggest buck. My buck also had a drop tine, and I couldn’t help recall when Mom had showed me the magazine buck.

I called my wife, Patricia, and told her what he looked like. She immediately told me the buck was a gift from my parents.

Cathy came home from school to help skin the deer and seemed happy about hunting again. When the preacher saw it, he said God let my parents send me a gift to show me they wanted us to continue the family hunting tradition.

The taxidermist who knew about my parents scored the buck at 154 5/8.

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