By Steve Gruber
The
smell of the forest in the fall is a very special one. When the leaves
begin to turn, my mind focuses on the big whitetails hiding in the shadows
of the oaks, maples and hickorys. Bowhunting is a passion that consumes
me when the green leaves turn bronze.
I was invited to the now legendary farm fields and hardwood forests of southern Illinois last year to pursue wild whitetails with Dr. Gary Lambert. From the moment I first settled into my stand, I knew it was a special place. On the second morning of the hunt, I was startled from a daydream by a nice 8 point and the doe he was chasing through the trees.
The third morning as dawn was just starting to break, my heart skipped and then began pounding nearly uncontrollably as the biggest whitetail I'd ever seen came into view walking almost straight at me.
The buck stopped before walking into my shooting lane just 14 yards away. I took the shot while he kept moving at a steady pace. The shot was perfect and the deer shot into the woods and vanished. A short time later I knelt in amazement at the giant 170 class 10 point. He never heard the shot and never knew what happened!
I have been hunting professionally for more than a decade and have never found products that work better than SIMS LimbSavers! Simply put, I would not leave home without them.
Steve Gruber, Illinois
Whitetail 10-pt Buck 2002
Steve Gruber is President of Wolf Creek Productions, Inc., which produces LimbSaver's Outdoor America, Bowhunter Magazines American Archer and Benelli's American Birdhunter. All three can be seen weekly on The Outdoor Channel. For more information log on to www.wolfcreekinc.com.