Weather: For the first two and a half days we had about an inch of snow and it was pretty cold opening day. Then after Monday night the temperatures were above normal
Location: Moose Junction, WI
Bagged: 11 point 180 pound buck
The weather conditions for the first day of the season were ideal: one inch of snow, calm, sunny and a high of twenty degrees. I sat down by the otter crossing all day on opening day. I saw two groups of antlerless deer before noon. This year was our second year of bucks only on account of the depleted deer population after our nasty winter in 2013, so I was unable to shoot a doe. For lunch I had planned to cook myself some Rome Noodles up in my tree stand; both to pass some time and to get something warm to eat. Well, it did not work out so well. I cold not get the water to boil. I was using a can of Sterno and it kept going out and just was not getting very hot. After about an hour of fooling around trying to get the water to boil I decided the heck with it. I added my noodles and flavor packet to the luke warm water. It was not what I had expected, but it was a little bit of warmth and the somewhat crunchy noodles partially filled my stomach. Both the Tupper kids shot antlerless deer the first morning; it is permitted for kids 16 and under to shoot an antlerless deer.
On Monday we made a couple of drives. The first two were unsuccessful, but on the third my luck changed. I was one of two drivers on the third drive and on our way to start the drive I spotted a very fresh large track in the remnants of what snow we had left. I figured this deer had eluded us on the previous drive and probably was not too far away. Fortunately for me there was just enough snow to follow the tracks, although with some difficulty. Mark Tupper Jr. and I were the drivers, so I sent him ahead and around what I thought would be the travel path of the deer. I was hoping to put him into a position to get a shot at the buck if it was still in the area and tried to escape. With some difficulty I was able to follow the tracks along the edge of a large dried up swamp. After about stealthily following the tracks for about 300 yards I heard the deer get up between myself and Mark and crash through the brush. I sprinted a couple yards out to the edge of the swamp hoping to get a glimpse of the escaping deer. Luckily for me the deer decided to run the open area along the swamp edge. One quick glimpse was all it took for me to identify the whitetail as a very large and mature buck. After three quick shots from My Ambush 300 Blackout AR rifle the buck was down!
It was a very exciting moment for me. My new rifle had performed just as I had hoped it would: a rapid-fire rate with good accuracy. In all honesty I do not know if I would have hit that deer with my old and slower bolt-action rifle. I also credit Mark with helping me get that buck. That deer was only bedded about forty yards from where Mark was standing and I don’t think it would have ran out to the swamp unless Mark was there blocking its other escape route.
Mark Sr. got a spike the following day. Success wise it was a good season, but the cabin was way to crowded and after a couple days I started to get a little frazzled with all the chaos.
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