When the smoke cleared and the buck was no longer in the food plot, Roger Poe began shaking. The hunter from Mt. Olivet, Ky., also imagined the worst: that he must've pulled the shot and missed, or else hit the deer too high.
It's always disconcerting when a deer doesn't drop, isn't it? After all, that's why a lot of hunters simply can't manage follow-up shots - though such a thing is almost impossible when one is shooting a smokepole.
R.J.'s worries, however, were unfounded.
He was hunting opening weekend of the Bluegrass State's 2013 muzzleloader season, so eager to get a crack at the magnificent buck his trail camera had photographed six days in a row that he'd arranged to burn his only vacation day the following Monday.
He'd been retrieving photos of the animal since 201o. He'd watched it grow from a decent 9-pointer into something far bigger. And, best of all, he thought he'd nailed the giant's routine.
The camera indicated that the buck was apt to pass through what R.J. calls a "warm hollow," a place with a spring that never freezes, where the very air seems warmer the minute one enters. He has a 10-foot-high, double ladder stand overlooking a small food plot there, and that's where he hunted Saturday (to no avail) and Sunday afternoon, Dec. 15.
It was a little later than usual when he climbed the ladder and settled in around 3:00. Not quite two hours later, the buck with the familiar rack wafted out of some nearby cedars and came onto the plot.
R.J. had to throw out some soft grunts - the second series while at least one doe was nervously seeking out the source - in order to make the deer turn enough for a clear shot.
"After grunting the second time, I immediately put the crosshairs on the buck," he said. "When it turned, I slowly squeezed the trigger."
All the deer scattered afterward, including the buck. It managed to go 100 yards before giving up the ghost.
With a BTR composite score of 200 3/8 inches, R.J.'s buck is No. 6 among Irregulars felled by a smokepole in Kentucky. It's also the largest ever recorded from Robertson County. Dale Weddle's story about the hunt will appear in a future issue of Rack magazine.