Adam with his buck of a lifetime.

Hunter: Adam Spittler
Cameraman: Holly Spittler

Our 2008 PA season was winding down and we only had 1-1/2 weeks left. The night before, Holly and I went spotting and saw a good buck with a dozen or so doe. I thought we should hunt this one stand I have in this area. It always seems to produce some bucks this time of year. The 8 hours at work seemed like it was a whole 40-hour workweek. I was anxious to get in the stand for the evening hunt. At approximately 3:15 p.m., we climbed into our stand. As soon as we got settled in I broke out my PSP and played some Madden football.

Around 4 p.m. the woods erupted. It took a few seconds to catch myself and realize what was happening. It was a good buck chasing a doe. The buck was right underneath me before I even got to stand up and I knew I didn’t have much time to make it happen. The buck would not stay still, he had one thing on his mind and it was not me.  He only needed to go a couple of steps and he would be out of my life.  I started grunting at him with my mouth and after about the 5th time doing this, he came to a complete stop. The Pennsylvania beast was at about 31 yards and quartering pretty hard. I could sense he was not going to give me much time to make the shot.  I drew my Hoyt Katera back and put the pin on the vitals. I squeezed my release off and watched the arrow take flight. I am not going to lie; I did not know where I was aiming. I don’t know what caused my shot to go where it did. It could have been the excitement and I flinched. I thought I missed!

Holly and I reviewed the footage and we thought I just nicked the bruiser.  I went to retrieve my arrow and found my Beman arrow and the sign was not blood. There was a little bit of blood back at the fletching. I thought there is no way I am going to get this deer.  It was real low in my hunting experiences, but I decided to walk about 20 yards from where I found my arrow. That’s when I had a pleasant surprise; there was a real solid blood trail. I decided to climb back up in the tree and pack our gear up. We just started getting our gear together and we heard a shot. I did not like where I thought the shot came from. Holly said it's best I get on the blood trail fast.  After I made a phone call to Jeremy and Whip, we waited at our stand.

Jeremy was the first to arrive so we got on the trail immediately while Holly waited for Whip. I will admit I usually am a good tracker, but after just shooting my PA buck of a lifetime, I was useless. So I just let Jeremy lead the way. He followed the trail for about 100 yards without any problem.  The buck started to go up a hill and it was getting harder to track.  We spent a while looking for any sign. We were ready to go back to the house and regroup as we were starting to lose light and we did not have our flashlights with us. I was telling them what our plan was when Jeremy found the blood trail again. Once again we could track it at a fast haul. At this point I knew I was soon going to put my hands around the beast’s antlers.

Out of nowhere Whip said, “Why is that guy running with an orange toboggan?” I had a feeling what was going on and I went running after him.  When I got up to the top of the hill and I saw this guy about ready to load up the buck I shot. I said, “Hey that’s my buck”! The guy said, “No it is my buck”, and pointed to where he shot it. I was thinking, here we go; I am going to lose my buck of a lifetime.  But I knew he did not take this deer legally.  I could see the hole was from a bullet and not a broadhead.

We told him we know you shot it with a gun.  We heard the shot and we can see the bullet hole and gun season is not open! That’s when he told us the hole is from a Spitfire. That was the wrong thing to say because I shot it with a Spitfire and I know the entry hole it leaves.  After about 10 more minutes of arguing he said take the deer.  Either way that deer was going home with me.  I was the one that legally shot it.  If I would have come across a hunter that made a good shot with a bow, it would have been their deer, and I would have said congratulations and walked a long walk back to the truck.  By this point I was exhausted, I never experienced a roller coaster ride quite like this one.

I just want to say thanks to Jeremy and Whip for all their help.  And a special thanks to Holly for sharing the great memories of our 2008 archery season.