By Erin Merrill

I listened to the ravens, crows and turkeys fight over the morning’s gut pile. I was still giddy about my success as I climbed into the treestand, almost within sight of the Sky Condo. Motion to my right caught my eye and I saw a deer feeding on acorns. I lifted my rifle and peered through the scope, hopeful that I could punch my doe tag. My heart raced as I saw the antlers. I was looking at a buck as big or bigger than the one I had shot hours earlier. Two big bucks in one day!

I calmed myself down and swapped my scope for my binoculars and paused. The buck I was now looking at was a large spikehorn. Where had that big buck gone? Where had this buck come from? Adjusting the binoculars, I saw the smaller buck make a circle and lay down. Every few minutes, I could see his head and ear move. I pulled my rangefinder out of my pack and tried to get a decent reading on the deer; he was maybe 45 yards away.

An hour and a half passed before I saw the spike get to his feet. The larger buck had bedded nearby, hidden from my view and joined the smaller deer eating more acorns in the open shooting lane. They butted heads and played a little bit. I sat in awe. Never, in the two decades that I have been deer hunting, had I see anything like this.

Watching the deer walk away from me, I immediately climbed down and headed out of the woods. I didn’t want to bump them as we came out in the dark. There was no way that the day could get any better. I had a huge smile on my face as I entered the food plot and walked over to the Sky Condo to get dad.

Like an excited child on Christmas morning, I recounted every detail of watching the bucks throughout the afternoon. Dad just laughed at me. The day I stop getting excited about watching a deer sleep for 90 minutes is the day I should stop hunting! The entire day was filled with new experiences and I got to lay my eyes on two big bucks in one day. I am not sure how I can top this!