Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 17, 1994 TAG: 9410200035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His hunts are snatched from a day off here and there and through the kindness of a fellow worker willing to take his place on the third shift long enough to give him an early start after a night's work.
Even so, he killed the top buck in the firearms season last year, a fact that should encourage the working-man hunter.
One thing Huffman, from Buena Vista, does have going for him is he hunts Rockbridge and Amherst counties, two of the better trophy-producing sections in Virginia.
The second morning of the 1993 season, he headed for Amherst. He hadn't had a chance to scout, or to bowhunt or to participate in the muzzleloading season.
"If I had time, I would," he said. "I barely can find time to go with the rifle."
Huffman left work about 5 a.m. and picked up his son, Tommy Jr., 21.
"We got to the mountain just at daylight. He [Tommy] took one road and I took the other road."
As daylight began to give shape to the woods, Huffman walked up an old logging road. At the end of the road, where he had taken a stand in the past, the understory had grown so lush that it disrupted his field of view. So he decided to move back down the road about 75 yards.
Standing there, he blew on his grunt call and heard something in the cover on the ridge about 70 yards behind him.
"When I looked back, I could see horns and head."
Huffman had no idea it was a buck of a lifetime. In fact, the animal was in cover so thick it was difficult to get a shot.
"He stepped out into a little opening where all I could see was his middle part," Huffman said. "I passed that shot up. Then he started walking again. Another five or 10 yards he would be over the ridge. But he stopped again."
The shot opportunity wasn't the kind that Huffman felt comfortable with taking.
"First, I said, 'I'd better take it.' Then I said, `No. If I don't get him today, I will come back later.' I knew it was a big buck."
When the buck disappeared into a thicket, Huffman began to second-guess his decision not to shoot. Swelling in the pit of his stomach was a "you've messed up" feeling.
Then Huffman heard noise in the thicket. The buck was angling down toward him.
"He stopped 50 yards from me and stuck his head and neck over the cover,'' he said. ``What really bothered me, the wind was blowing uphill toward the buck. I was standing wide-open in the middle of the road. I wear blaze orange. I look like a pumpkin when I go out into the woods."
Huffman didn't hesitate this time. He squeezed the trigger on his .30-06 and the buck dropped in its tracks.
When Huffman reached it he couldn't believe his eyes. The buck carried 18 points.
Taxidermist Ronnie Montgomery estimated it would place in the top five in state competition. It actually did better than that in September at the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show in Harrisonburg. It was first in the firearms division, with a score of 224 12/16, and fourth largest in the state, behind three muzzleloading bucks.
by CNB