The night before the opening day of gun season, we all met up at the deer camp.  Everyone talked about where they would be hunting and who had laid claim to which areas.  I already had a stand hung up on the side of one of the knob ranges.  It was rough land, but the kind of land that the better bucks seemed to like.  I didn't mind the uphill hike to get to the stand, because I had been seeing good deer in the area throughout the bow season.  None of them had been close enough for me to take a comfortable shot though.

I told the guys that I would be bow hunting on the back of the property, and they were shocked to hear that I would pick up my bow instead of a rifle.  I didn't own a rifle, so it was an easy choice.  I had a couple of guys offer me their extra rifles, and I declined.

With my bow in hand, I sat through the morning hunt, and saw several deer.  I passed on several shots on smaller bucks.  I even passed on a shot on one of the biggest bodied does I had ever seen on that land.  I heard several shots that I knew came from our lease.  I was pretty sure that my partners were scoring.  After sitting in the stand for longer than planned, I got down and went back to the camp.  They had four bucks hanging when I pulled into camp on the Arctic Cat.  None of them bigger than a 6 pointer.

After a rest and some lunch, everyone got ready to head back out to get on stand until dark.  Again, I was hit with the pressure to take a rifle.  "You're gonna see that buck of a lifetime, but it is going to be just out of range of that bow.  How will you feel then?" The  pressure got to me, and Charlie gave me a quick once over on his extra Remington model 700.  It was a .270 and a flat shooter.  A good gun for whitetails in Kentucky.

I saw little action until about an hour before dark.  Several does moved through and I saw a couple of small 6 pointers.  I let them walk in hopes of seeing a larger buck.  Soon after, I looked over my left shoulder and saw a decent buck.  He was an 8 pointer whose rack was outside its ears.  A pretty decent buck that I'd be happy to shoot.  He was coming straight towards me and was at about 40 yards when I decided to take the shot.  I raised the gun up layed the crosshairs on him, and he turned about 30 yards out.  I pulled the trigger and the buck covered about 40 yards before he crashed.

Now this is where I will probably offend some people, but that isn't my intention.  I felt kind of let down after that shot, even disappointed.  It was too easy.  I had only been bow hunting up to that point, and I just didn't feel the rush killing that deer with a rifle like I would from killing a deer with a bow.  It was at this point that I knew I was a bow hunter at heart.