Bluegrass doctor makes up for lost time in a span of five minutes.
Patrick Williams would’ve been happy just to be far removed from a waiting room full of patients. He’d have been ecstatic if he’d also managed to carry home some meat for the larder.
On Nov. 11, 2012, the physician from Prospect, Ky., experienced quite another mood-elevating adjective.
Never in his wildest dreams would the good doctor have imagined that a five-minute hunt, finished before he even reached his deer stand, would see him standing over a state-record whitetail. But that’s exactly what happened.
And given that he’d long given up hunting to pursue his career and start a family, it’s a wonder he was even afield.
His reintroduction to the sport came in 2010, five years after he moved back to Kentucky following a stint in North Carolina.
“It really started with some friends at church,” he said. “I hadn’t hunted since high school, but these guys were all hunters.
“One of the men, Wes Johnson, leases a 90-acre farm in Oldham County. He sub-leases the buildings on the place for indoor horseback riding, and then hunts the surrounding countryside. In addition to the barns, there are a couple of stables,” Patrick continued.
“The area is gently rolling with lots of white oaks. There are four pasture fields. A creek runs through part of the farm and drains down into the Ohio River. And the property is surrounded by a lot of bigger farms with crops.
“In 2010, Wes invited me to deer hunt on the land with him. Also hunting the property was another friend, Chris Manning,” he said. “I bought a .45-70 rifle with a 3x9 scope. I’ve always enjoyed shooting and consider myself a decent shot. The .45-70 seemed a good choice for the area.”
Oldham County isn’t known as a consistent producer of trophy whitetails. It does, however, rank fourth on the list of fastest growing counties in the state because it has become a bedroom community for the job-rich Louisville metropolitan area.
Patrick couldn’t care less about the trophy potential of his hunting area. For him, antlers are like parsley.
“We really like deer meat,” he said. “I carve out the backstrap and grind the rest into hamburger by hand. Hunting, for me, is just a chance to get away from it all.
“Most of the time, I go by myself. I just love to sit in a tree. I’ve also really enjoyed getting back into shooting,” he continued. “The year after I starting hunting again, I signed up to shoot competitively with a .308 caliber.
“The first year I hunted with my church friends, Wes had collected a trail camera photograph of a super-nice buck. And the following year, Chris took a 150- to 160-class deer off the property. So the farm definitely had potential,” Patrick said.
“During the early bow season in 2012, Wes twice jumped a huge buck while walking to his stand. He called it a reindeer because of the size of its rack. It still never crossed my mind that I might kill a big buck like that, and it really wasn’t why I was hunting.
“Opening Saturday of modern gun season, I didn’t go hunting because I had to work,” he continued.
But that wasn’t easy.
“We have this group text thing where if one person sends a text, everyone gets it,” he said. “All the guys out hunting on Saturday were seeing lots of deer and texting about it. This guy who hunts out at Goshen was sending all kinds of texts. Then Wes, who is hunting off the ground, takes a picture of a buck practically underneath him. All of that was killing me because I had to work.
“On Sunday, I went in to work early. My goal was to be out of there by 2:30 in the afternoon and in my stand and hunting by 3:00. I had a lock-on-type stand set up in a pretty good location.
“Right on schedule, I got out to the farm, parked, crossed a fence and started moving quickly toward my stand.
That’s when I remembered that, even though I was off work, I was still on call until 7 p.m., and I’d left my pager in the vehicle.
“Walking back to the fence, I de-cocked the lever action, put the safety on, crossed the fence and retrieved the pager. After getting back across the fence, I headed for my stand again.
“I was walking across the field at a steady pace when I heard something in the woods. When I looked over there, I locked eyes with a doe. She didn’t like what she saw, so she took off running,” he continued.
“I then looked over into the next field and saw six or seven more deer, at least two of them bucks. They got to the top of a hill and stopped. The largest buck was broadside, and I could tell it was huge. It looked like the deer was carrying around a rocking chair on its head.
“I raised my gun, pulled the hammer back, judged the distance at about 100 yards, centered the scope on the buck’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Instead of a boom, I got a loud CLICK, and the buck just stood there,” he said.
“I thought the cartridge was a dud, so I racked in another and tried again, also getting a CLICK. That’s when I realized I hadn’t taken the de-cocking safety off after crossing and re-crossing the fence.
“Getting the gun ready and back up, I pulled the trigger a third time. The gun fired, but the deer never moved. After chambering another cartridge, I shot again and knocked it to the ground. Just as quickly, however, it was up and running the 25 yards to the woods’ edge,” he added.
The excited hunter jacked in another cartridge and, still shooting off-handed, led the running deer and squeezed off a third time. The final boom turned the running buck into a front-end loader, plowing up the ground.
When Patrick got up to the buck, he had a hard time believing the size of the rack.
Hunter: Patrick Williams
BTR Score: 200 1/8
Centerfire
Perfect
– Photos by Dale Weddle
This article was published in the September 2014 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.
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