It’s a fitting name. I bestowed this name on a huge buck that should have secured my entry into the ‘Legends’ of Rip and Tear Hunt Club’s history. I guess my chapter was yet to be written.

It started out harmelessly enough. All of the gang had returned from a long afternoon on the deer stands and we were anxiously awaiting supper to hit our stomachs. It became quickly apparent that one of our guys, Kevin, had not arrived yet. I forget exactly why the ‘old-timers’ in the camp felt it was so important that Kevin made it back in good time, but they delegated to me the task of his evac.

Then, the debate started.

I remember it quite vividly. Not wanting to tell the ‘Ole Guys’ that I did not want to agree to their request, I threw on my hunting vest and headed for the closest atv.

“You better take your gun.” dad said.

Grandpa and Bill Billingsley piped up with similar sentiments and I think went into story mode about some long lost time forgotten.

“I’m just going down to Spiers’ field. Besides, the atv noise will scare any deer off before I even get there.” I replied. The dice of probablity began to spin in my head.

Grandpa and Bill stopped talking for a second and looked at me with a puzzling look. I could have heard a .22 shell drop on wet leaves. They grinned, looked at dad and went back into their story. Dad ‘encouraged’ me one more time to take my firearm.

Stubbornly, I said “I’ll be fine” and fired up the atv and tore off down the camp road to the field.

The dice were still rolling.

Somewhere in the distance a hound started on a deer scent. A feeding buck planned his escape route.

When I reached the field location where I was to pick-up the hunter I turned off the atv’s engine and waited.

That hound was getting closer.

Out of instinct I reached for where my gun pouch would be and remembered it was sitting on my bed listening to 3 men chuckling about the rookie who left it behind.

A buck picked a path down a ridge to Spiers’ field.

The dice in my head stopped rolling.

“Snake-eyes.”

After another minute, the hound sounded very close and then I saw a massive buck briskly walking across the field. He was 75 yards from me at full broad side. I watched with a broken heart as the deer continued his perpendicular path in front of me for another 30 seconds!

Moments later, Kevin walked out of the bush and asked if I saw anything.

I said “Yup!”

Then, he asked, “Where’s your gun?

“Back at camp.” I sheepishly whispered.

When we got back to camp the smell of supper welcomed us inside the cabin. 3 heads turned towards me and asked me if I needed my gun.

The dice in my head started rolling again. There was not much chance of dodging that question.

4 old timers jeered about what had happened that day. Three were in the cabin and the other was somewhere west of Spiers’ field.

Big Bucks, Deer Hunting, Muskoka Outdoors