Monday, January 08, 2007

Mark Stewart -vs- The Black Knight


Thicket, MS> Mark Stewart felt sneaky. Rexs' stand sure looked appetizing and of course Rex was nowhere around. Mark slipped into the Sneaky Stand just before daylight.
Three hundred acres of fields had been planted in CRP (trees) eight years ago and was a veritable thicket. The Sneaky Stand laid on the edge where it touched the big woods. Several strips had been cut through the head high trees and sage grass and rye grass was planted. Deer loved it and sooner or later a big buck was going to come there. Mark got ready, the timing was perfect because the bucks were in full rut.
It wasn't long till a few does moved across the strips in front of him. He checked them with his scope as they filed into the grass. Not long after, he began to hear deer running through the grass and knew a buck was chasing them, but all he could see was an occassional tail or grass bending over as he waited. Then out of the treeline to his left, a nice buck appeared. Small, but it was an 8-point. He looked it over and debated shooting it. He heard deer running and raising hell in the grass to his left, looked, could see nothing and decided he had better shoot the 8-point while he could. He moved his rifle across the rest and put the crosshairs on the browsing buck.
A loud grunt sounded to his left. A long, scary, loud, hostile grunt! Mark turned his head to look and he could see the Black Knight about 50 yards away in the grass. The huge buck had his head up above the grass looking his way. He counted 5 large white tines on each side, but did not see the brow tines. This monster was a super gigantic trophy buck! He tried to get his gun on the animal, but a head shot through the grass was too risky. He had to hope the deer came toward him. He shifted his eyes, the little 8-point was gone. The Black Knight was still looking around and then lowered it's head and disappeared into the sea of grass. Mark sat on G-O for three hours and never heard another sound or saw another movement. The Black Knight had escaped again.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice buck. So is this story about something that happened earlier in the season, or are Mississippi deer in rut now?

Editor said...

last week, the bucks are redhot, right now.

Anonymous said...

Must be nice. The rut is little more than a distant memory here.

Othmar Vohringer said...

It sounds weird, here in Canada most bucks have shed their antlers and then a friend in Tennessee tells me yesterday that the bucks are still rutting and now I read here that the same holds true for Mississippi. This just tells you something about how big North America really is and how different the climate from the north to the south is.

-Othmar Vohringer-

Editor said...

because of the amount of deer and the rural nature of the south, we get 4 months of deer seasons. It is great considering that we really only get to hunt on weekends.

Anonymous said...

The Knight didn't mind because I didn't matter.Editor,you forgot the part about "feeling like a idiot" for the next three hours....
something about a 8 point in the field is better than a 10 point in the brush...