ARTICLES
Deer Me
by Keith Davis

I am definitely not a writer nor a great story teller but I do love to talk about hunting , especially whitetail deer hunting, so here is my story.

This past November I was fortunate enough to return to Alberta, Canada for my second whitetail adventure. I was joined by two good friends that went with me on my first hunt, Terry Marshall, and Dr. Bill Bryant. The first hunt we all had together was a successful hunt but was one of the warmest November months recorded and the Boone and Crocket monsters were laying low. I have watched dozens of videos of heavy snow , frigid temperatures and giant bucks running around chasing does with snow on their back. That thought was enough to get me back again, but would the weather cooperate.
We hunted with outfitter Bill Machura of Diamond Willow Trophy Hunts out of Vilna, Alberta, which is about 2 hours northeast of Edmonton. The camp is run out of his home on his farm. The downstairs of his home has been converted to a relaxing gameroom/trophy room that also can sleep 6-8 hunters. The morning and evening meals were provided by his wife, Karen, and were outstanding.

The first day there was spent in preparation ,checking rifles,getting to know other hunters, and talking about game plans for the week.

The first hunting day brought some excitement, some of which I don’t care to repeat. After a one hour drive by truck, then a twenty minute drive by four-wheeler we arrived at the cut line that I would eventually hunt most of the week.
Generally you hunt from daylight til dark unless you come out and tie a marker in an area predetermined by you and a guide. They usually come by and check at 10am ,2pm and then at dark.

After climbing in the stand and watching my guide disappear, I began to get comfortable for the possible long day ahead. The stand I was in was a 14ft ladder with a swivel seat and a shooting rail around it. The debate over whether to wear a safety harness went thru my mind since I did have a shooting rail around me. Safety won out and as I reached to my side to retreive it out of my backpack my weightshift caused the ladder to twist. The next thing I knew the bottom of the ladder had kicked out and I found myself hanging on the shooting rail upside-down clutching my rifle. Several minutes past and with the good Lord’s help , I made it down. Once down, and knowing there wasn’t anybody within miles, I still had to look around and make sure that there wasn’t a hidden camera somewhere with people snickering.

After a 30 minute fight with a ladder I was once again ready to hunt. Around 10am I caught a glimpse of a large bodied deer coming thru the bush. As it stepped out , I could tell something wasn’t right. This giant buck had broken the right beam off right past the brow tine. I watched this buck walk away. A few minutes later I thought he was returning , when I looked up this buck had both sides! It was only an 8-pt but was over 20 inches wide and very tall. I told myself this is the first day you’ve got to wait to get the big ones, so I watched him slowly disappear.

The next day was almost as exciting in more ways than one. As we were riding in on the quad in the dark, I smelled a strong odor of something burning. I asked Glen my guide, Do you smell something burning? He said “Yes” and as he stopped the quad , a fire broke out around the engine. We jumped off and he began throwing snow on the engine to put it out. Apparently some grass or brush that had gotten caught around the engine caught fire. I thought to myself ,”What else can happen?”

Day two was also exciting on the hunt as I watched two nice bucks come to a mock scrape that I had made. The first was a 130 class buck that sniffed the dominant buck lure and then bolted away never to be seen. The second buck , the largest I saw, and later regreted not shooting, was a main-framed 10 pt. with a 3 inch kicker. He came to the scrape and licked the cannister for nearly a minute before slowly walking away. My guess was mid 150’s but this is still just day two.

The next two days were pretty uneventful with the snow melting away as the temperatures climbed to nearly 50 degrees . I saw a few smaller bucks from other stands and had been on several unsuccessful drives(bush pushes).
The fifth day was unique not for seeing deer, but a strong front was pushing through and winds of 50-60mph were felt most of the day.After 10 hours of that and not seeing deer my hopes were falling fast. I began thinking about the nice deer I’d let go and what was I thinking?

Well we were down to the last day, Saturday. I knew chances were slim now but that front that had passed had brought in the coldest temperatures of the week. When we got up Saturday morning it was a chilly 7 degrees . I had spent nearly 50 hours in a ladder stand over the previous 5 days and had decided to take the first decent racked buck I saw that morning , come in get cleaned up and watch the Alabama-Auburn game on the couch with a cold beverage of choice.

As it turned out that’s exactly what happened. Because I had seen some nice bucks in that first stand , I decided to return there for my last day. It must have been the only place that still had snow on the ground. But now, because it wasn’t fresh and was frozen, I couldn’t have made more noise tearing sheets of paper as I walked to the stand.
I was only in the stand for 30 minutes when I heard someone or something else making all of this crunching noise. It couldn’t be deer, it was too loud. I finally caught a glimpse of a doe running and not 50 yards behind was a nice buck. At that moment I remembered what the outfitter Bill had told me. He had said “Don’t waste your time trying to stop these deer with a grunt. They don’t pay it any attention. If you need to stop them ,just yell , HEY!! So as soon as the buck hit the line I yelled, but he didn’t stop . So again and louder I yelled HEY! With that , he threw on the brakes just quick enough for me to get a broadside shot , and he was off . I knew the 150 yard shot was good so I waited.

As I made the walk down to where I had last seen him, I was relieved to find him piled up. He turned out to be a pretty nice buck. A heavy 8 pointer which scored just over 140.
As I stood over him , and began to reflect on the weeks events, a light snow began to fall. In two years hunting Alberta in November, this was the first snowfall I’d seen.

Thank you, Brannon and Cristal.