The Big Five (Hunting Story)

  As the days before my scheduled hunting trip passed, the anticipation kept building. We had a small list of "hit-list" bucks and at the top of that list was a mature buck that we called The Forkhorn (aka the Big Five). We all agreed that this buck had a "kill on-site" policy, so much so, it became competitive as to who could get him first. But as season goes, we all went many sits without seeing any sign of him.

  Then the day finally came! The day I had looked forward to all month, November 13, 2014, the day my vacation began and I got to drive the eight hours north to my Georgia hunting lease. I drove straight through and by the time I got there, it was 2:00am, so now I had a decision to make; either unpack and set up camp and get less than two hours of sleep, or sleep in the truck and get about four hours asleep and set up camp the next day after the hunt. So the best idea seemed to get the most sleep I could and deal with camp after my hunt.

  As luck would have it, I woke up on time, but was so tired I was dragging. With sunrise being at 6:30am and fast approaching, I unloaded the four wheeler, unpacked my camo, and got dressed. By the time I got all my gear together, completely dressed out, and got on the four wheeler to leave camp, it was 6:33am! Needless to say I was late! I floored that Honda as fast as I could safely go, and tried my hardest to get to the stand as quickly as possible.

  When I got to the edge of the field, I had a very pressing feeling that there were already deer out on the field. The field was already harvested so it was nothing but dirt, but the feeling was there, so I stepped to the edge of the field and glassed the edge where there were usually deer and like a ghost, there he was the Big Five! I instantly dropped to my knee, grabbed my shooting sticks, and went to find him in the scope of my Browning X-bolt 7mm. As I was looking through the scope, my shooting sticks started to collapse, but I was able to confirm it was, in fact, him. I grabbed my range finder, and  saw that he was over 325 yards out, but I saw he was appearing to scan the field for does, so I grabbed my grunt call and hit it three short times. What happened next was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen! He began sprinting at me full speed, behind him was a big cloud of dust, I had never had a deer run towards me as fast as he did. As he began to close the distance, I grabbed my range finder again, he was at 177 yards, broadside, and had slowed to a trot. He began to bow up, hair raised on his back, head hung low, and ears laid back; it was clear he was not happy about having a second buck in the area.

  I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder, took a deep breath and slowly squeezed the trigger. In the scope I saw him lurch forward and his front leg come up off the ground as he disappeared off the field. Feeling I made a good shot, I walked to where he went in, found blood, dropped my shooting sticks to mark the area, and headed the rest of the way to my tree stand. As I was sitting in the stand, I kept hearing a thump, followed by the shuffling of leaves. I looked over, and once my eyes adjusted, through the brush I could see my buck taking his final kicks. Once I felt he had passed, I jumped down out of the stand and went to retrieve my buck. 

  He had such a huge body that I was very excited to put him up on the scale, I was also very excited to see that he was a partial piebald! He had white hooves with white socks, and a double white patch! Once I got him loaded and back to camp, I then realized where my priorities lie. I had a phenomenal buck on the ground and no place to put him. So after I got the camp all set up and put him on the scale I was surprised to see he weighed in at 220lbs! 

  When I got him back from the taxidermist, I decided that just for laughs, I would score him. Once again this buck shocked me with a gross score of 115 7/8"! To this day, he remains my absolute favorite buck, and every time I look at him up on the wall, I go back to that day, when a short series of grunts, landed me my oldest, and heaviest buck to date.

-Chris Johnson