IOWA BOWHUNTER FALL 2024/WINTER 2025

BONKER’S WORLD (CONT.) WINTER ISSUE

cover. Sure my visual acuity is affected but I can still see good enough. Time passes, it passes very slowly because there is zero cell service down in the bowl. How am I supposed to know how cold I am if I can’t get my weather app to work? So I spend my time watching the (insert your favorite expletive here) squirrels running around like crazy. Every year I say there is more squirrels this year than last. Time passes. I pull out some milkweed fluff to see if the air is moving. The fluff stays suspended and eventually drifts to the ground. Time passes, I ate a salted nut roll, actually I had two because they were small. Time passes, the squirrels must be taking a nap because all is quiet. I wonder if the squirrels are quiet because they could smell my salted nut rolls and they were formulating a plan to get them from me. I don’t dare take a nap lest the squirrels mount their attack. Time passes, The sun sinks lower, shadows grow longer. Then it happens, I hear a faint grunt, it is coming from my right toward the top of the bowl, probably from that trail to the north east. Another grunt, this time closer. I’m looking up at the trail. My mask my be cutting down on my ability to see clearly but I’m sure if a deer comes down that trail I’ll see it just fine.

I was getting a crick in my neck from trying to see in back and above me so I went back to looking at the ground. I did have to lower the bill of my hat because the sun was low enough it was in my eyes. The next grunt was much closer so I looked up at the trail and even through the mesh I could see he was big. How big? All I could make out was tall tines and a big body. All he had to do was come a few more yards then turn onto one of the trails that came down hill. I started to get excited. He made it to the first trail and passed it up, at the second trail serendipity told him to come down the trail. I could see him a little better, he was huge. It has been a very long time since I’ve had the buck fever but this was the biggest buck I had ever seen from a tree stand and I was going to have a chance at him. The fever started to creep in. He kept moving down the trail to my 30 yard mark, I brought my crossbow up thinking he would keep going to my 20 yard mark. The bill of my hat that I had pulled down to block the sun hit my scope. I couldn’t get the eye relief right so all I was able to see was a small dot of light surrounded by black. As quietly and gently as I could I moved my hat. I looked through my scope and I still couldn’t see a thing. Between the mesh, glare from the sun and the fever, I was

blind. Now I was in panic mode, he was nearly at my 20 yard tree. I tried to get the mesh mask off but what little dexterity I had was long gone and I couldn’t get the mesh over the bill of my hat. He stopped right in the middle of my 20 yard lane but I still couldn’t see. I finally managed to rip off the mesh mask. My heart was pounding, I was panting like a dog in august and I raised my crossbow just as he moved out of my 20 yard spot and behind just enough of a brush pile to make the shot too iffy. He stood behind that brush pile forever, my heart was still pounding, but my breathing had gotten a little better. I tried to range him but I was still shaking and the sun was still a factor so I think he was still at 20ish yards. After standing there for so long the sun was no longer a factor but my heart rate and breathing were still elevated. Then he slowly started to turn back the way he had come. He only turned back far enough to be facing straight away from me but he was still looking back up the trail he had come down. He took a little more of a turn back toward his trail and took a step in that direction. What little self composure I had managed to regained was now lost. But instead of going back up the trail he moved straight away from me, from 20 yards to over 40 he never presented a shot opportunity, only his backside.

16 IOWA BOWHUNTERS ASSOCIATION

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