One day in mid September, Tracy Speice, a co-worker of mine, was surprised by a phone call from a truck driver asking where to deliver a large parcel with their name on it.
That large parcel turned out to be a new elevated deer blind her husband Stuart had purchased with overtime money he’d salted away.
With the “surprise” blind up and running overlooking a feeder, Stuart and hunting partner daughter Brooke, a freshman at Hutchinson Community College, made the blind their second home. She often hung out there early mornings before school, and the two of them spent time there most evenings.
Even after the infamous Kansas wind sent the new blind crumbling to the ground, it was repositioned and anchored to fix the problem, and the father-daughter surveillance continued. From the blind, Stuart and Brooke saw the same several does and fawns, while their trail camera showed four or five bucks, two of which were shooters, but all traveling through well after dark.
Sunday morning Nov. 1, the morning after Halloween, Brooke slept in. Her dad, however, slipped into the blind early and arrowed a nice ten point buck.
Now Brooke is all about competition, especially when it comes to deer hunting with her dad, and with his buck he had “thrown down the gauntlet” so to speak, adding fuel to the friendly father-daughter rivalry. Brooke’s part time job keeps her from hunting many evenings, but the following day, her boss called and asked her to work extra, only earlier in the day. She agreed if she could leave at 3 p.m. to hunt, so 3:45 found her back home and in the blind.
About 4:15, what appeared from a distance to be a small buck showed himself briefly, but soon turned and disappeared behind a dead tree. For the next 45 minutes or so, does and fawns came from different directions to the feeder, but the buck only showed himself one other time, only to disappear again behind the same dead snag.
Finally he emerged from his hiding place, heading away from the feeder, and slowly but methodically worked his way in a large circle toward the blind, evidently trying to get the wind in his favor as he approached the does at the feeder. Soon he stood in front of the blind a mere 20 yards away.
Brooke fastened the release onto the arrow already nocked onto her bowstring and began to draw her bow, but something went awry and the release triggered without warning, sending the arrow on its way to land well behind the unsuspecting buck. He jumped at the sound, took three little “stutter steps,” and now stood looking up at her as she slowly nocked a second arrow. That arrow found its mark and the buck spun around and bounded away in the direction from which he’d come. She watched him drop about 60 yards away, still thinking he was an “OK buck,” but nothing really big.
