Does The Buck Stop Here?

Catching walleyes on a consistent basis, all day long, everyday, requires a mental focus many don't have or want to invest. Often, one boat will have the landing net out every time you look up at them while the rest of the pack gets a bite once in while. Often times, I'm lucky it's my boat that is getting stared at. I invest the level of focus that nets more walleyes, no doubt.

But as the shoreline turns to bright colors and leaves float by the boat these days, I fight that focus while images of the coming high speed beef season fast approaches. Memories of past shots trigger visions of a nice buck sneaking up again this year. With 46 deer openers in the memory bank, it's no wonder trying to focus on where a shadrap is running, relative to the lake bottom, can be harder these days.

As near as I can count, maybe bragging, I've killed about 120 whitetails of various sizes and ages--and gender. I sit watching the Twins play and look up at a 168 inch buck and re-live every second of those moments that lead up to hanging it on the wall. But as fun as that is, I think even more of the one that is (or maybe was) the same size that out-foxed me just last year. I had him (almost) in my cross hairs, sleeping, just ten yards away! Don't ask.......

It takes a smart buck to live on and around public land to a ripe old age of 6 or 7 years. Surely, those old bucks don't believe, as they wander by a deer stand in July, that the buck stops here in November.

An old high speed beef hunter in "my" neighborhood sent me a photo his trail camera took recently. It was an image of an old deer with a rack that dangerously resembles the one I still lose sleep over from last fall. It has to be him. It's at least a 160 inch deer. And in "our" neighborhood, they are not allowed to live that long, very often.