Four days into 2017, Leonard Jarrett decided to brave the below-freezing temperature in order to watch the midweek sunrise from a deer stand.
Keenly aware that cold weather often keeps Alabama deer on their toes, regardless of the status of the rut, Leonard drove the 10 miles from his home in New Market, Alabama, and arrived at his homemade plywood shooting house about 5:15 a.m.
He chose the shooting house over a ladder stand primarily to ward off the biting, 10- to 20-mph north wind.
The 54-year-old logger had hunted the Madison County property for 10 years. He works part-time for the landowner, and he's now the only person who hunts those 400 acres.
Leonard saw this buck at the far end of the hay field he was watching around 9:00. It chased a doe out of the bordering privet thicket, but neither remained in the open for very long.
He says he had just enough time to throw lead at the moving deer, if he'd wanted to, but he opted not to risk it.
After lunching with his wife and brother-in-law, Leonard returned to the property at 2:30, wearing a warmer pair of boots. Instead of going to the shooting house, he carried a 5-gallon bucket to a small island of trees on the other side of the hay field, closer to where he'd seen the buck and doe that morning.
He shot the buck between 4:30 and 5:00.
Leonard waited between 15 and 20 minutes before walking over to admire the animal. He was later able to drive right up to it, though loading it was still a tremendous strain.
He says the deer's field-dressed weight was 180 pounds, and he thinks it was between 5 and 7 years old. He'd never seen it before the day he shot it, although the neighboring landowner, Tony Veritton, was very familiar with it.
Tony actually shot the deer with his crossbow on Nov. 10. The bolt lodged beneath the shoulder - and stayed there - without hitting anything vital.
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