The Not-Squirrel That Didn’t Get Away
By Mike Handley
Chase Aldridge spent more time looking at deer he couldn’t shoot than the one that wound up taking his arrow on Nov. 2.
The professional dirt mover from New Albany, Indiana, was with his father, Chad, that Saturday. Their stands were a half-mile apart, and they were in place maybe 30 minutes before the sun rose over Clark County.
Chase had hunted four times since the bow season opened, but this was the first time he’d gone to his “bread-and-butter” stand, which is about a 300-yard hike from where he normally parks.
The morning was action-packed where the 22-year-old was keeping vigil. At 9:00, he drew his bow when a buck with a kicker passed within 30 yards. He’d have been happy to shoot it, but he couldn’t close the deal.
Barely half an hour later, another shooter appeared 100 yards distant. Alex tried to coax it closer by grunting, but the deer ignored him.
Chase met his dad at 11:30, and they drove to the Copper Kettle restaurant in Charlestown for smashed cheeseburgers, fries and cole slaw. When they returned, Chase announced he was going to take a nap inside the Chevy, while his dad, itching to return to the field, walked to the farther stand.
Chase climbed into his own ladder stand around 2:30. The afternoon was unseasonably warm, so his hopes of seeing anything before last light weren’t high. At least the wind’s right for where I’m sitting, he told himself.
“I was actually sweating, which is never good,” he said.
About 5:30, while eyeballing a couple of small bucks, Chase heard a faint noise even closer. He almost dismissed it as being a squirrel, but then he saw the noisemaker — NOT a squirrel, or possum, or bird, or turkey — walking toward him.
“It was a similar deal that morning. Seems all the deer there were moving at the same time,” he said.
The new arrival was in the brush, enabling Chase to draw before it stepped into the clear. To make the 13-yard shot, he leaned outward, bracing against the ladder stand’s gun rest. He paid little attention to the obviously huge antlers.
The man paid little attention to anything else, really, including the two small bucks that could’ve busted him.
The animal bolted after the thwack, but it stayed on its feet for only 75 yards. When it fell partly behind a tree, Chase pulled out his binoculars. He could see only one side of the deer’s rack. The young bucks remained in the vicinity, almost as if they were pleased the prostrate buck was paying them no mind, until the anxious hunter descended the ladder.
“I couldn’t tell that much about the rack from looking at that one side through the binoculars,” he said. “I was really hoping it was as big as I’d thought, but I really didn’t know how big it was. The whole encounter lasted less than two minutes, maybe under a minute.
“I guess that’s a good thing, too, because I didn’t have time to get buck fever,” he added.
When Chase reached the deer, he photographed it and sent the image to his dad. After that, he walked out to await his father’s arrival.
The deer was every bit as big as he’d thought.
“I didn’t recognize it, at first. Later, I realized I’d had it on camera since 2021, when it was probably a 3-year-old,” he said. “I have hundreds of pictures of that deer.”
Getting the animal to the truck involved a 100-yard uphill drag, punctuated by numerous breath-catching, muscle-resting stops.
“We dragged for no more than 20 yards at a time, and then we’d give out,” he said. “We stopped four or five times before we reached the top, and then we had to load it in that high-bed truck.
“Normally, we’d have had dad’s Ranger, but not that day,” he continued. “More tired than I was, he climbed into the bed and grabbed the deer by its rack to pull, while I got underneath and pushed. I don’t know if I could’ve done it without the adrenaline rush.”
Once loaded, the Aldridges drove to a nearby gas station to display the 18-pointer. They’d already taken the time to position the deer so that its head was upright.
Steven Taylor and Kevin Bateman scored the deer for Buckmasters, arriving at an even 196 inches. The mount will hang in the elder Aldridge’s basement.
Photos courtesy of Chase Aldridge