Opening day of bow season in the Texas panhandle was unusually cool. It was a new moon and everything seemed right. I was as exited as a kid at Christmas. I got into my Gametracker treestand an hour before light. I could hear deer crunching acorns beneath me in the predawn dark. My mind raced, like every year, that a big buck would visualize beneath me in the mornings early light.

By seeable, legal, shooting light the deer under me had gone. It was not ten minutes after I could see my sights that two large bodied deer appeared out of the hackberry thicket. One was light gray, the other looking nearly black. I could only tell they were big, nothing else.

As they walked by at 15 yards I could see it was a doe followed by a spike. I was stunned at how large the deer are here compared to deer in the rest of Texas. I think the spike would dress at near 200. The average buck taken in this area weighs 275 and scores 150, but still hard to believe until you see it. They also have trophy mule deer in the area.

The day produced more doe and yearlings. I decided to stay in my stand all of 14 hours of the opening day. Thirty minutes before sundown an 8 point walked by at 5 yards. Years before the arrow would have been in the air, but not this year. Knowing there are bucks on this ranch that go 200+ and the fact it was opening day, I could hold on. I tell ya, this trophy huntin' in hard stuff!

Two days more had produced the same, does and small bucks, the big boys were just not moving, although I did jump an exceptional buck coming out of a thick creek bottom near a field I have a ground blind on. He was surrounded by ringneck pheasants and quail that are so abundant in this area.

The last morning of my hunt I went to an elm thicket just off a creek, bordered by fields. It looked like the ideal set up.  I got into my stand as crimson was just starting to appear on the horizon. Being in a hurry I forgot my video camera, hurrying to get quietly in the stand before visible light.

Squirrels, and lots of them were my first guests. After a while these critters were starting to annoy me. I could not risk the noise of a blunt. Arrrrgggg!

At dawn I'd heard wild turkey near by. Turkey always interest me, and are legal during the same season as deer, although thoughts of them were replaced with that of a triple beam buck that had been photographed here earlier in the year.

Movement! Turkey! Three, no four black forms started to appear from the underbrush. I grabbed my Nikon and started getting some photos. In standard turkey time, they slowly worked there way into an opening I'd measured at 25 yards. 

A jake was the first to step into the opening. A barking squirrel caused the small flock to jump into the air, only to settle a few yards closer to me. 

My Bow Tech Patriot 38 was drawn before the closest turkey's feat touched the ground and the Steelforce Hellfire on it's way.

My bow was so quiet due to the quietners that Bow Tech has on them, complimented by Sims accessories, the turkey barely flinched. The closest bird quietly flopped over. My Trueflight barred turkey feathers disappearing in the turkey below.

I've bow hunted turkey twenty years and, 

1. Never been able to draw on a fall turkey from a tree stand and 
2. The noise of my bow had always disturbed the other turkey, but not with the extremely silent arrow I shot this day. God bless the quieting devices.

Tony Dukes ....