You can put in all the work and spend all the time, and deer hunt still won't turn out exactly how you expect.
Deer hunting is about stories, and the people involved in them. The game animals we pursue are really only a part of the story to help juxtapose against the humans that share encounters, that feel emotions, and that witness the unbelievable.
The way these stories are told can vary; vocally over the smoke and flame of a campfire; written in magazines or online articles; or memorialized in video form, shared on hunting shows and online platforms.
But no matter what, the stories are different, and meaningful in different ways.
So goes the tale of the multi-year archery pursuit of an Iowa monster with super big antlers nicknamed "Megatron."
The Deer Society's Colton Hall tells the story, and takes us down the path he walked over the course of a few bow seasons with this big buck.
When Hall finally gets to walk up on Megatron as he lays dead in the dirt, his feelings are just about the polar opposite he initially anticipated. But with a kick in the pants from his compatriot, and an all-out love for the hunt, Hall gets back out in the treestand the next day. What he discovers, and eventually accomplishes, will really make you think.
The eerily obvious question that has to be asked: Do you think that whitetail buck was the one who fought Megatron? Could he have been the "competition" Hall was dealing with? They were both trophy bucks in many definitions, but it just goes to show that you can't predict everything big deer are going to do. Even the biggest bucks from the pages of Boone & Crockett are vulnerable, but they're also reaching maturity for a reason.
It's easy for bowhunters to assume the worst, and think a poacher killed their target deer. Or maybe a neighbor got lucky during the first bowhunting season dates. Or it didn't survive an attempt to cross a highway. A lot of things can happen to a whitetail deer, and each and every day is a proverbial lifetime during Iowa archery hunting season.
But Hall puts it into perspective, and determines that it was ultimately Mother Nature that led the animals to do what they did, and led to the demise of the mature buck known as Megatron.
"They're wild animals... this is what they do."
And to think, it was one little doe estrous bleat from "The Extinguisher," a deer call from Illusion Systems. That's what attracted the Iowa giant, plus his accompaniments, and presented Hall with the opportunity. He knew what he had to do, and it was absolutely the right thing.
How about that for an ending to a great buck's story?
NEXT: FEEDING THE OBSESSION: AN OKLAHOMA TURKEY HUNT WITH MOSSY OAK
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