About 40 yards before I got to my stand, a doe ran into the road 20 yards away, stopped and looked me over but wasn't as concerned with me as she was with what was behind her, so she exits... Then appeared a nice 6 point who didn't worry much about me either but did reverse his path after realizing the doe was gone. Meanwhile I am still standing there in the road with two guns slung over my shoulders and both hands full of gear wondering what just happened.
After a few minutes of trying to decide if I needed to alter my plans for the evening, I went ahead and set up my ground blind. Before I could finish my setting, I hear the thicket 30 yards in front of me come alive with crashing brush and grunting of another buck chasing a doe. They were not the same ones I just saw because they were on the other side of the road from the first ones! I reach for my rifle still laying on the ground realizing that I was going to get a chance to shoot if he was a "shooter."
As I have my rifle shouldered and my eyes on the brush, back over my left shoulder comes more brush breaking. There I am, with a buck fixin' to make an appearance across the road, my rifle still pointed in his direction and my head now cycling from side to side waiting for the first view of horns...
I see the deer coming from behind me first. He is a big deer and coming the same trail as the first doe and buck. He is running straight for me when he hears the ruckus across the road and veers to his left and stops in the edge of the opening with his head low as if waiting for the appropriate time to make his appearance.
I now can see his horns but just a little of the buck in the thick brush. He is so close to me I can't see him in my 4X scope! He is definitely a shooter but I can't find him in the scope. I have a bad situation, knowing he can disappear just as quickly as he appeared. I look away from the scope, look down the side of the gun and pull the trigger.
It was an easy shot because he was about 15 feet away. Needless to say the shot broke up the chase across the road. I figure that buck owes me one...unless he was a bigger buck. (Which is possible for the area... I'll never know...)
I was gone from camp for 20 minutes. My Mom joked that I returned to camp so soon because I had left my shells, but 5 of those minutes had more action than any other 5 minutes in my hunting career!