We had arrived at Deer Camp a little after midnight on Friday night and still had the alarm set to get up before sunrise the next morning. The morning hunt was cold and uneventful. After warming up and getting some lunch back at camp, my wife and I decided to travel several hundred yards up stream to a spot we call the upper deer crossing. We were going to take along a popup blind and hunt the afternoon together at that spot. We set up about 30 yards back looking at the stream to an area we knew deer have used in the past to cross. A few hours had passed with no activity (except for the ever present squirrels) and it was approaching dusk. We had only about a half hour left to hunt when my wife heard a twig snap to the side of the blind. As she glanced to the left, she saw a VERY nice buck traveling quickly on a path that would take it behind the blind. After a very brief discussion on who was going to take the shot, she insisted that I should take it. I reached for the 308 leaning against the side of the blind and looked out the back window. What I saw was a nice buck that has stopped about 30 yards away and was stairing directly at us, and I still haden't raised the rifle yet! I very slowly raised the gun and to my surprise, the deer stood and watched (the wind was in our favor and he could only see from about my neck up). Placing the crosshairs in the center of the chest, I squeezed off the shot. I knew the shot must have been good, but the deer turned and ran with no sign of injury. Surprisingly, a check of the area where he was hit revealed absolutely no signs of any blood and we were losing our light fast by this time. With flashlights in hand, we tried to pick up the trail since we knew the path he took for about 40 yards before we lost sight of him, but we could find nothing. Since we were perhaps making the search harder by tracking up the area, I decided to give it up for the night and come back on Sunday morning when it was light. After an anxious night, the search for any blood on the known exit path the next morning still showed nothing. Feeling a bit discouraged, we marked the last spot where we last saw him and started circling out from that spot. About 15 yards beyond that point, we FINALLY found a clump of bubbled blood on some leaves (see picture). With renewed optimism, we soon found another spot about 10 yards further. Now we had a direction and followed a fairly well marked trail to find a very nice 8 point buck that collapsed about 100 yards away from where we shot.

We knew it was a nice deer and was guessing the dressed weight somewhere around 180 pounds or so. After hanging it up for a few days, it was time to take to deer to the butcher shop. There, the deer was raised on a certified scale and and the readout read 202 pounds! I was told that any deer over 200 pounds in Maine qualified to apply for membership in the "Biggest Bucks in Maine" club and was handed an application with the certified weight filled in. The application was sent in and a nice patch was mailed to me a week or two later (see picture). I'm planning a trip to the Sportsmen's Show in the spring to get the rack scored.

Some nice bucks have been taken from the area we hunt, but this one was the biggest so far, although several of the neighbors in the area have mentioned to us about seeing a 10 point in the same area! Perhaps there are still some new stories to write!