A little background Information to help this story:

Two weeks earlier we had been hunting in Saskatchewan for whitetail. We were hunting on an Indian Reservation so Bill had several tags he could use on this trip. The weather was very warm for October in Canada, it was in the mid 40s for highs. You just don’t get much deer movement when it is that warm. The next to the last afternoon we spotted an HUGE black bear in a cut oat field. I talked Bill into checking the bear out since we had a bear tag. The wind was perfect and we stalked to within 75 yards of the bear. 

Living in Eastern North Carolina I get to see plenty of world class Black Bears and this one was right up there with the ones we had back home so I tell Bill to get his rifle ready. I wanted to get some good, steady footage of the bear and then I wanted to get Bill to harvest the bear. Well, one problem, Bill didn’t want to harvest the bear. After a long drawn out conversation I could not get him to harvest the bear.

Long story short, when I got back to the lodge I showed the other owners of the outfitting business the footage of the bear Bill would not shoot and they were a little upset. One even told me if it happened again for me to grab the rifle and shoot the animal!!  By the way, the bear that Bill would not shoot ended up weighing 632 pounds and made Boone & Crockett. 

Back to the story in Mexico:

Like I said, it was my first trip to Mexico and it was our first afternoon to hunt. We were sitting in a couple of tower stands and had been watching several young bucks come in and out of the brush, when I looked up and all I could see were tines coming out of the brush! The deer came out at 325 yards and began to graze. 

Well as the old saying goes, you’ll know a good one when you see it!

I got Bill’s attention and he glassed the deer with his binoculars while I was getting some footage of the buck. The deer actually fed to within 80 yards of us while I was filming. Without looking at Bill, I told him “Shoot The Deer!” A few seconds went by there was no shot! Once again I said, “Shoot The Deer Bill!” Once again no shot!

I look over my shoulder to see Bill with his binoculars still in his hands! I asked, “Did you hear me Bill, SHOOT THE DEER!”  I was getting angry with him and I was raising my voice. I was scared we were going to scare the deer off, but once again Bill was not cooperating. 

He told me he wasn’t going to shoot the deer because he did not have any brow tines! Once he said that, I about blew a gasket. I told Bill that the chances of us seeing another deer that big on the trip was slim to none! Once again Bill said he won’t shooting the deer because he didn’t have any brow tines!

Finally I said, “Give me your rifle!”

Bill said, “Are you serious?”

I said, “Yes I’m serious, I will shoot that Buck in a NY second, GIVE ME THE RIFLE.”

Bill said, “Nope I’m going to shoot him.”

BANG!!!!!

Long story short, the deer scored 157″ as a 7 pointer and the next closest deer shot that year on the ranch scored 141″.  Bill told me he would have never guessed that deer would be that big! I told him he needed to take up picture taking, because he sure wasn’t a hunter!!!!

Here’s a photo of the deer Bill didn’t want to shoot!

As usual I had all my gear (approximatley 60 lbs worth) waiting at the door the first morning ready to go to the stand. We sprayed down and put our special scent control boodies on to walk to our stand. The stand we were hunting was looking over a CRP field so the guide drove us right to the stand. Once we got out of the truck the guide put a special cloth down at the base of the tree and we put our boots on and I climbed the tree first.

I usually wear my backpack that maily has those heavy batteries for my camera while climbing the tree to the stand. Then I drop a 35 foot pull rope for the hunter to hook up my Camera Arm and eventually my video camera so I can pull it up and get things ready for the hunt.

I got to climbing the screw in steps and it felt like it was taking forever to get to the hunter’s stand. Then I feel a tug at my rope. I thought it had gotten tangled around one of the steps so I give it a few tugs and something doesn’t feel quite right. I turn on my flashlight and shine it down the trunk of the tree. To my astonishment I had used all my rope and had not made it to the hunter’s stand.

Talk about a crazy hunt. I had to make three trips low enough so the hunter could hook up my equipment and then I staged it in the hunter’s stand so he could pass the equipment to me once I got into the camera stand.

Well, I got all the equipment into the hunter’s stand and then the next task began. I realized I was going to have problems getting into the camera stand. I basically grabbed the platform of the stand and then swung a boot up on the platform and pulled myself up into the stand. What a terrible way to start the hunt and I was already mad at the world and the sun hadn’t even come up yet!

Once the sun came up I realized I was WAY up the tree and that I was really going to have a problem getting out of my stand! I asked the hunter if I could borrow his laser range finder and I shot a range to the bottom of the tree. 

18 Yards!

Now I’m not that great at math, but 18 yards = 54 feet!  I was 54 feet up a tree so large, that I couldn’t even wrap my safety harness around the tree.  When time finally came to get out of the stand I had to basically jump from my stand into the hunters stand because I had no screw in steps to assist me with my decent to the hunter’s stand. Talk about pucker factor!!! Well thank the good Lord I safely made it to the ground.

That trip taught me to always carry extra screw in steps with me in my pack!