In order to bring home a dream buck like this, the author believes, a passionate desire from deep within is a critical factor in making it happen.

The temperature was downright brutal and the wind made it almost unbearable. The key word here is “almost.” I didn’t let the weather conditions keep me from hunting, for a couple of reasons. For one, only a couple of weeks were left in the season and I wanted to get in every possible minute of hunting time. On top of that, a severe winter blizzard followed by an arctic blast had the local deer piled into a honeysuckle thicket no bigger than 20 acres.

By the looks of things, I suspected that nearly every deer in the township was holed up in this thicket. A couple of days earlier, right after the snowstorm had passed, I had ventured into the edge of the cover and rattled in a couple of nice bucks. But I had failed to tag either of them. Now the cold air out of Canada had dropped the temperature in Illinois to below zero with wind chills at minus 40 degrees.

That wasn’t enough to stop me, however. For three mornings in a row I woke before daylight and trekked to the thicket for a chance at one of the bucks that I knew was seeking refuge within its cover. Each morning I knew the hunt would last only a couple of hours because even with my multiple layers of specially designed cold weather clothing, a human can only endure so much.

Still, the unfilled deer tag in my pocket acted like a cattle prod to move me from a warm bed to my tree stand even when I realized that my chances for success were slim. I knew that deer movement during this time of the year would be much better in the afternoon or even at mid-day as compared to the frigid early-morning hours, but my work schedule dictated that I hunt only in the mornings and on weekends.

BRUTAL WEATHER, BRUTAL DETERMINATION
I would love to report that I tagged a good buck that year, but I didn’t. I ended that season more than 15 years ago with an unfilled tag still burning a hole in my pocket. To this day, that week represents the most brutal conditions I have ever endured in a tree stand. Surviving each hunt was as much a mental challenge as it was physical. I honestly doubt that there was another bowhunter in a tree within 50 miles of me on those miserable late December mornings.

To offer further insight into how cold it actually was that week, the plastic fletching on my arrows literally became so brittle that pieces cracked off. One morning when I climbed down from my stand, I noticed something red in the snow at the base of my tree. When I picked it up, I realized that it was a piece of fletching. I looked at my arrows and noticed that a couple of them had the fletching broken off.

When I ran my finger over one of the remaining fletching, it instantly snapped off as well. I was using the highest quality fletching available at that time, and normally they would instantly spring right back to shape when bent to the side. In those extremely cold conditions, though, they just snapped apart.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE
As I look back over my hunting career, I can think of numerous times when I faced various challenges and fought through them. The situation that I just described was the worst as far as weather conditions, but there have been plenty of other challenges as well. Some were mental and some were physical. I met them head on because my goal was to tag a monster whitetail and I had learned that excuses don’t get it done.

page: 1 | 2 | 3