The hunt that lasted 2 years
Phil Taunton
Friday, November 24, 2006
On the first Sunday of the 2004 rifle deer season, Brian Dewitt of Emporia decided to go deer hunting.
He made it out to his favorite hunting spot around 1 on that cold, wet afternoon.
The cover on this particular piece of land was thick and brushy. Under normal conditions, deer could hear the hunter coming from a mile away. But today, a light rain muffled the sounds of Brian’s movement.
Thirty minutes into the hunt, Brian eased around a large cedar tree and couldn’t believe his eyes. There, not 25 yards away, was a mature 140-150 class buck bedded in the grass, looking his way.
Brian confidently raised his firearm and took the shot. Like every good hunter, Brian had recently “sighted in” his 300 Winchester Magnum rifle. Upon impact, the buck rolled over twice and lay motionless.
Boy, Brian was excited! He had been on successful deer hunts before, but this time he knew he had just shot the largest buck he had ever experienced in the wild. What an impressive rack of antlers this deer had.
Brian wasn’t particularly satisfied with the shot he had made, but the deer appeared to be stone dead. Still overly excited, he pulled out his cell phone, took a picture of the trophy and sent it to his wife with the caption, “I got one.”
Just then, he noticed the buck stir. Before he could chamber another round to finish the harvest, the deer bounded twice and disappeared into the brush.
Not knowing what to do, Brian called his stepfather and asked him how long he should wait before pursuing the wounded animal. He was advised to wait thirty minutes and hope the deer would lie down and bleed out.
While he was waiting, Brian also called his father-in-law and a friend with hopes they would come out and help him trail the wounded animal. Both were there within 20 minutes, and the hunters followed the blood trail through the woods until darkness fell. They believed the deer had crossed the river and decided to resume their efforts to find the deer at first light the next morning.
Brian was so disgusted with himself he could hardly sleep that night. He had made a bad shot and never made sure the deer was dead before he began to share his good fortune.
At daybreak the next morning, Brian and his stepfather renewed the search for the buck on the other side of the river, to no avail. By mid-morning they had found nothing — no blood, no tracks. On their way back to the truck Brian noticed a large set of tracks heading in the direction they were going and a little further along the trail they started finding a few small drops of blood.
A flicker of hope prevailed.
They followed this trail of tracks and small drops of blood along the river for more than a mile only to be lost once again.
Brian gave up and went to work. By mid-afternoon, the thought of losing the buck forced him to leave work, don his hunting gear and resume the search.
He did find the trail again and diligently searched until dark, but was still unable to recover the animal. On day three, Brian and yet another friend searched for the deer through mid-morning and then finally gave up. The buck was lost.
Throughout the 2004 season, Brian told this story to anyone that would listen, hoping that someone might find his deer, one way or another. He was so mad and disgusted with himself that he didn’t hunt anymore that season and replayed taking a picture of the deer, calling his wife and not making sure the deer was dead, over and over in his mind.
People laughed at his “one that got away” story but, being a responsible hunter, Brian was really feeling the pain because he was not able to recover the animal.
This year during bow hunting season, Brian had a conversation with a neighbor who hunts the ground next to where Brian lost his deer, and the hunter told him of a deer he had shot a week earlier and couldn’t find. Brian briefly told his own sad story and they both just shook their heads.
The neighbor then asked Brian if he knew of any water on the property other than the river, because he once heard a wounded animal would seek water.
Brian did know of a pond and they made their way through the brush hoping to find the bowhunter’s deer. This year, the pond was very low due to drought conditions.
You can imagine their surprise when they found antlers sticking out of the water at the edge of the pond. It was not the bowhunter’s deer.
Brian pulled the skull and antlers from the water and, after comparing them to the cell phone photo he had taken before he called his wife that fateful afternoon two years earlier, Brian concluded he had finally found the buck he had wounded and lost. The deer was only 200 yards from where it was originally shot.
Brian estimated he had tracked the deer for more than three miles in his three-day search to recover the wounded animal.
A sad ending to Brian’s story, but an ending nonetheless.