Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9411010020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 26-year-old Floyd County woman was bowhunting from a tree stand that gave her a crow's-nest view of the huge animal moving her way in the early-morning light.
``When he came up through there he had his head down,'' she said. ``I kind of figured he was trailing a doe.''
Before daylight, Melissa had heard something move ghostlike beneath her stand, probably a doe. The buck was following the same course, his nose to the ground like a tracking dog.
``I had to pull myself together before he got within shooting range,'' she said. ``I tried to calm myself down by thinking how proud they would be of me if I could kill it.''
``They'' included Timmy, who was home in bed, laid up with a cold and a bad back from an industrial accident.
The two had scouted the deer together. There was a thicket nearby, then the green alfalfa field that Melissa watched. Timmy had predicted the buck would be bedding in the thicket and moving to the alfalfa field for food. Or maybe for does.
``We had been watching him ever since he got his horns,'' Melissa said.
So had a number of other hunters in the area, who had caught sight of the buck's flashing white tail, his towering antlers and his beefy body that some estimated to weigh 250 pounds or more.
When he got within 25 yards, Melissa brought her Bear bow to full draw and released an arrow with deadly accuracy.
``He tried to take a step and just fell over,'' she said.
Melissa climbed out of her stand and made a rough count of antler points without getting too close to the buck. Then she headed home to tell Timmy.
``She came back and told me she had counted 13 or 14 points,'' he said. ``But she's always pulling something on me.''
The two went back to the stand in a pickup truck, and a closer examination revealed 18 points.
``It is just a massive rack all over, `` said Dwayne Linkous, a Blacksburg taxidermist. ``It has 18 true points. I mean long points. It should easily go into Pope & Young [the national record book for bowhunters].''
There's another Pope & Young candidate in Linkous' shop, a nine-pointer with a 22-inch spread killed in Floyd County by Jerry Price of Blacksburg.
In Franklin County, near Smith Mountain Lake, 12-year-old Joshua Waldron killed a 10-point buck with his bow. The trophy carried a 17-inch outside spread.
Joshua was hunting alone, from a tree stand positioned along a woodline that overlooked a field. The young archer said he had discovered a number of deer scrapes and rubs. Melissa and Timmy Boone reported the same thing in their area.
This is solid evidence the rut is under way in earnest, that we are in a time of year when deer become sexually active and hormones literally swell up in the bucks, sending them in search of does.
Maybe the large number of trophies bowhunters are taking and the observations of rubs and scrapes means there are more big bucks out there this season, or that they are sexually active earlier than usual. What is certain is the tag end of October is destined to offer excellent bowhunting.
by CNB