Americana Outdoors E-Magazine - August 2022

that, he began working his way across the field nearly on a string to where we had set up.

draw and mumbling. I know…Jeff was only doing what’s right despite my feeling like he was being a fun hater this morning! The buck wandered off, hopped the old rusty barb-wired fence slowly raising his tail, and trotted off. A couple of hours later, we climbed down leaving a lot of gear in that tree so we could easily return later that day for an afternoon sit. Both of us relived the encounter as we headed back to camp laughing about how close we came to sealing the deal.

When I say we, I was sharing the tree with my good friend and sometimes trusty cameraman Jeff Reynolds. Jeff and I’ve filmed many a deer hunt together. Over the past 15 years we’ve built a bond working together that’s forged over our love of deer hunting. However, sometimes Jeff can also be the NO man which can make me grumpy when he’s that guy. You see, filming a deer hunt in a leafy tree, he’s the guy who can tell me NO when a buck is being blocked from camera view. Which in my line of work means I have to sit there and pout and not draw. Or worse at times I’m holding the bow at full draw trying to let it down after he calls me off by saying NO to a shot because sometimes my shooting lanes don’t match his filming lanes. That’s what happened this fine October morning when the buck walked through one shooting lane perfectly broadside with me at full draw before stopping me with a well-timed “NO, I can’t see him.” Which he added in for added emphasis this time.

GO WHERE THE DEER ARE

We had seen about a dozen different deer that morning, and knowing the afternoons in that part of Texas are often better, we headed back to the same tree stand from the morning at Scott’s urging. At a stand set up like that, we should see action as the shadows grow longer and the sun begins to go down. So we settled in about 3 hours before sunset. With about 45 minutes of shooting light left Jeff whispered, “Over there.” I glanced back to see him pointing towards the south. Sure enough, the eight-point from this morning was about to jump back into this field in nearly the exact same spot he left earlier this morning. It’s amazing to me after all these years how sights like this make my blood pressure rise but, that is a good thing if you ask me. The deer working now from my right was going to settle in and pass somewhere between 25 and

The conversations between hunter and cameraman can get a bit snippy.

As I held the bow at full draw just a bit longer, it was apparent I wasn’t going to get a shot at this angle. I begin to sulk a bit like a lab puppy being told no for chewing on a shoe. I could see the deer feeding perfectly broadside with its leg forward exposing its heart. “That’s a dream position for a bow hunter” I thought as I turned to grin at Jeff after letting off from being on full