Halloween Monsters Are Not All Bad    
By Randy Oitker

October 28th, just three days before Halloween. I had been hunting in Pike County,IL. at Walnut Knob Outdoors off and on for about a week. My dad/cameraman and I met up with J.J., one of the guides for Walnut Knob, late one evening on Friday, October 21.

J.J. showed us around on some new leased property. We found what we thought was a good place to set up. It was about twenty yards off of an old logging road, in between a bean field and a bedding area. We started setting up our stands and while we were setting them up, the sky opened up and started pouring.

    The next morning, we got in our stands before daylight. It was nice, cool and quiet. Just like we thought, the deer came out of the bean field down the logging road to their bedding area. We were seeing a good number of deer. We hunted there for a couple of mornings and a couple of evenings.

We were seeing some pretty nice deer, which included a really nice mid 140's

8 pointer. There were a lot of deer coming in behind us just off of the logging road, but we couldn't see them because of the heavy foliage, so we decided to move our stands about 70 yards down into a little clearing. We hunted this area for one morning and saw a couple of 125-130 class deer.

    This logging road had scrapes and rubs all up and down it. The only problem was I think that we were seeing most of the deer that were coming through there. But, this wasn't the type of deer that I was looking for so that evening we grabbed our Summit Climbers and got out next to the bean field. We thought that would be a good place to see if there was anything big coming out into the field.

    We started seeing some deer filtering out at a couple of different places around the field. The main number of deer that we were seeing were coming out at both ends of the field where the field splits from beans to corn. When dusk came, we started seeing some big body deer that could have been bucks in the picked corn field so we made the decision that the next morning we were going to hunt the stands that we had by the logging road. Then in the afternoon we were going to take the climbers down by the cornfield.

    We got out of the stands at about 10:00 am and went into town to get something to eat. When we got back to the bean field it was about 1:00 pm. The bean field is about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from the truck. Now get this, we are carrying video equipment, two climber treestands (Summit-Vipers) and my Mathews Switchback bow. We finally got to the bean field. I don't like to walk straight across an open field because bucks tend to hang around the edge of open fields and watch. We moved slowly around the edge of this field to where this long finger of timber came out between the bean field and the corn field. This finger of timber was only about 70 yards wide and 300 yards long. We thought the deer were coming out of the big timber through the finger into the fields. When we got around to the edge of the finger, we saw the deer were bedded down in the finger. Well, we bounced out about 15 does and 3 nice shooter bucks. We discussed the situation and thought that because we had bounced out so many deer, it would be useless to set up at the end of the finger like we had intended. But, it was getting so late in the day, we did it anyway.

     Now, we had to find a couple of trees to get into. We picked out two tall White Birch trees at the end of the finger. The only problem was there wasn't any cover so we decided we had to climb high! I went up about 40 feet and my cameraman/dad went up about 42 feet in the tree right next to me. I don't encourage or recommend hunting that high, but I felt comfortable doing it in my Summit Viper climber and I was wearing a good FULL BODY HARNESS SAFETY BELT.

    When we finally got settled in, it was about 2 pm and was a little windy . Between three and three-thirty, the wind died down. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, in comes this doe and yearling fawn. They were running as hard as they could across the beanfield from the same end of the field that all of the deer that we bounced out had gone into.

The big doe went right on by, but the yearling fawn came into the end of the finger, right underneath our stand. We couldn't figure out what had run them out of there. We kept watching the other end of the field 290 yards away. Out of this bedding area comes two fork horns, which must have run them out. Some other does came out behind them and they headed off in a different direction, as the two little fork horns started pushing on each other. The yearling fawn fed right underneath our stand for about a half an hour. Then she bedded down with her butt actually touching the base of my tree. She was bedded there for about an hour and a half.

We kept watching the other end of the field where the fork horns were still pushing on each other. Every once and a while more deer would come out. Everything from does to this basket rack, year and a half old buck. Then out comes this nice mid 130.

I was already looking through my Bushnell binoculars, when suddenly; I see a giant set of horns just inside the timber. My dad sees the horns at the same time as I did. We looked at each other and simultaneously we said "Oh my God." This was the type of deer I was looking for!

   Now, I would like to tell you that we did some fancy rattling or calling to get this deer across the field, but that is not what happened. He stepped out onto the edge of the field and at 290 yards he was a toad. He was defiantly the boss hog. I watched intensely as he pranced around there for a minute or so then a doe came out. He took out chasing her almost straight away from me crossways through the field. My heart sunk to my knees. All I could think of was tomorrow night I am going to be in a tree across the field where he came out, when, like some kind of miracle, here he comes back by himself! He goes right back to where all the deer were congregating, stopped for a few seconds and then started right across the field, straight toward us! I could see him every step of the way. In front of my dad was this big bushy tree that blocked part of his vision, but I kept informing him "He is still coming, he is still coming." Now I am thinking, if he takes the same route as the doe did, he is going to be broadside, right in front of me. This was working out perfectly; there was not a reason in the world for this buck to come all the way across the field. Especially, when all of the deer were staying at the other end of the field. This was working out great, when suddenly things started going bad. He was coming in on the other side of us where a fence row came up beside the finger that was grown up in nothing but solid brush. I didn't see anywhere to shoot except one opening three feet wide that I might get an arrow through. Now, what would be the odds of getting him to stop right at that point!

We had the camera all set up for everything to be filmed in front of me because we knew there wouldn't be much of a shot opportunity behind us. It took this deer over thirty minutes to come across the field. My nerves were totally shot at this point and things were getting worse. I ranged the opening, with my Bushnell Yardage Pro Rangefinder to 40 yards exactly.

My dad turned the camera around and got positioned as best as he could. The buck locked up in one spot for about five minutes just watching and listening. Remember, the yearling doe was still bedded underneath my stand. When she saw this buck, she almost jumped out of her skin. He went on full alert as she trotted  down through the timber. He started again, walking cautiously, each step getting closer and closer to my shot opportunity. My heart was pounding so loud and my adrenalin was already at its peak. As most of you already know, I shoot and perform all over the country eight months out of the year and in front of thousands of people. There is nothing that compares to the excitement and anticipation of being at full draw with this monster  just about three steps away from my window of opportunity!

Everything went perfectly, he got in the clearing, I grunted softly and instead of him looking up, he looked at the yearling doe that had just jumped up. I just pulled the trigger on this monster and my Easton Arrow tipped with my Muzzy 100grain 3-blade passed through his heart like butter. He whirled and took off on his death run forty yards into the bean field and I watched him go down.

   Finally, all the adrenalin and anticipation came to a head. I had been watching this buck for almost an hour come across the field and into my shooting range. The excitement was so intense and then my adrenalin hit my stomach. I started heaving. I thought that I was going to throw up. It took me about thirty minutes to gain my composure, get down out of the tree and look at the true monster. He is what you would call a perfect ten. His gross score was 160 6/8 and he field dressed at 240lbs. and he is probably not going to have over an inch and a half in deductions.

 

Randy's Halloween Monster Buck

 So, if you like Halloween time and you like monsters try Walnut Knob Outdoors in Pike County, IL. and tell them Randy sent you! You won't be sorry!

To contact Walnut Knob go to www.walnutknob.com or give them a call at 217-285-2347.

I want to thank these Fine Sponsors for a great 2005:

Yamaha Motor Corp., Mathews Solocam Bows, Muzzy Products, Cabela's, Scent-Lok Odor-Eliminating Suits, Realtree Camo, Bushnell Sport Optics, Sims Vibration Laboratories,Camoclad , Easton Arrows, Rinehart 3-D targets, Wildlife Research Center, Summit Treestands, Outdoor Edge-Knives, LaCrosse Footwear, Easton Arrows, SKB Bowcases, Toxonics Sights, Rackulator, ITP Tires,Fulmer Helmets, Memphis Car Audio, Eze-Eye Arrow Wraps, Walker's Game Ear, Arrowspeed Radarchron, Motorola Radios, Magellan GPS Systems, Walker's Game Ear, Thompson Center Arms, Arrowspeed Radarchron, Bolle Eyewear, Spare Bladder, Walls Outdoor Wear, Badlands Backpacks, Walnut Knob Outdoors and Bowtree,Inc..