IOWA BOWHUNTER FALL 2024/WINTER 2025

BONKER’S WORLD WINTER ISSUE

Deer camp 2024 is a vague memory, my five pound weight gain from Thanksgiving is still firmly attached to my waist and the first gun season is in full swing. I should be sorting through my tote of orange stuff in preparation for my foray into the second gun season, but Mother Nature has already given me my one and only opportunity at a dandy buck for the year, so why even try? That one opportunity can be a failure that results from a lot of reasons, but it boils down to either hunter error or the serendipity of nature itself. Each of this year’s deer camp attendees were given that one opportunity but none of us connected. For three of us it was serendipity, or the good luck of the buck, that intervened and kept the buck running free and making fawns. For one of us it was hunter error of stupendous proportions. Two of the events happened from the same tree stand. The first incident happened to My Personal Guide’s Assistant. He was sitting in what they like to call “the big oak” stand. It is indeed in a huge old oak tree and I believe My Personal Guide planted the acorn just after the dinosaurs died. The tree sits in a brushy fence line on a ridge and as such has a commanding view of the area. The Assistant spotted two shooter bucks about 200 yards in front of him coming out of

some thick cedar trees. They eventually made their way to the fence, one behind the other they stopped at 20 yards. The Assistant chose the biggest of the two. The Assistant started to draw his bow and almost hit himself in the nose as the bow string came off the cam. It seems he had gotten a twig stuck between the string and the cam contributing to nature’s serendipitous event. A quick trip to the local bow shop and he was back in the big oak in time for prime time but the Assistant didn’t see anything bigger than a forky for the rest of camp. The second event occurred a couple of days later. My Personal Guide’s Apprentice was sitting in the big oak when he spotted a large buck about 200 yards behind him in a bean field. He rattled at the buck a couple of times but the rattling was ignored and the buck eventually moved into a wooded draw. A little while later a doe jumped the fence from behind the oak tree waking the Apprentice from a tree stand nap. After she cleared the fence she ran like she was being chased by all the hounds of hell. He grabbed his bow and stood up, because a doe running like that can only mean one thing; a buck was chasing her. About 30 seconds later the buck he had seen in the bean field was trotting along the same path the doe had taken.

When the buck got to the fence the Apprentice drew, the buck jumped the fence and when the buck got into the shooting lane the Apprentice grunted, but the buck didn’t stop, when the buck got into the second shooting lane the Apprentice shouted, but the buck still didn’t stop. There wasn’t a third shooting lane, only low hanging branches and by the time the buck cleared all of the branches there was just wide open spaces that were out of range. The buck stopped when he got to the wide open spaces and stood there so the Apprentice could admire his enormous rack and then meandered his way to the opposite end of the field giving the Apprentice plenty of time to admire the beautiful rack, and to replay the lost opportunity over and over and over. The Apprentice didn’t see any bucks after that close encounter. Once again nature’s penchant for serendipity foiled another hunt. The third event happened to My Personal Guide. He was set up on the same field where the other two events occurred, but at the opposite end from the big oak. The stand the Guide was in is called “be sure and pay your life insurance premiums.” The Guide watched several deer, does and small bucks, grazing under the oak tree, and as you may recall the old oak tree is about 200 yards away. He was enjoying the show the

14 IOWA BOWHUNTERS ASSOCIATION

www.iowabowhunters.org