Scuba Buck

If you live in Butler County and were outside yesterday morning about 8 a.m. you probably heard the super loud laugh of Mrs. Janet as she dropped the hammer on her best buck to date.

Guided by the ever patient Pat (Guide / Husband to Mrs. Janet), this is how it all came together:

We walked into the woods on Spring Creek at 6:30 a.m.. prevailing south breeze.

My guide had set my new blind according to him, underneath the biggest mulberry tree in Kansas. We got in but not without a series of marital disputes:  my stool was too short,  the windows in my new blind were too tall and every time my guide crouched or bent over to pick something up, the grunt call in is pocket made noise. Not really a grunt, more of a groan.


When the sun came up, we could see some deer movement on the other side of the creek. I turned about 10 minutes before we saw the deer and told my guide I heard a buck grunt (and not the one in his pocket). He couldn't hear it (cause I was hunting with the deaf guy/guide.)

As I was talking to myself in my head about various things (Should I really be out in the woods with a deaf guide? How am I gonna shoot anything out of a window that is head high, AND DO I really know what a buck grunt sounds like?), my guide got a visual on the buck I wasn't hearing.

Then, two does appeared in front of the blind, they came right up the ridge to the blind within two feet of the window where our sent was streaming over the north part of the pasture.

I had about 3 minutes to decide, so I turned and asked my guide  "Should I shoot?"

He answered in a rather hushed, irritated tone, "I'm not gonna tell you what to shoot."
(Not only is my guide deaf, but a little cranky.)

I decided that it was a better deer than I had ever shot, so I decided to try.

Now...... I Thought. What is that sound I have to make to stop the deer? I don't know if I did it right, but I did it loud.
 
He stopped, perfectly broadside at 20 yards and I shot, destroying the netting on the front of my new blind. I watched carefully but the buck didn't do that high ass end kick.

My guide turned to me and said ,as he does every time I shoot at something, "DID YOU GET HIM?" 
  

Short blood trail (one drop), and the deer only went thirty yards. He landed in 3 feet of water, thinly covered with ice.

Lucky for Mrs. Janet her guide / husband put the scuba gear on and fished her buck out of the frigid creek!