As soon as Kevin Thomas washed down his last bite of a sausage and egg croissant with a swig of Mountain Dew, he decided he'd better head for his treestand. He had two deer tags in his pocket, and he'd already decided to pop the first whitetail that he saw. Buck or doe, the hunter from Sweet Springs, Mo., was itching for fresh venison.
It was breaking day by the time Kevin nudged shut the door of his '75 Dodge, and he still had to cross a corn field to reach his fixed-position stand in the timber. Half the crop had already been cut, so he could easily see the distant woods line as he trudged across the corn stubble.
When he was within 200 yards of the trees, Kevin spotted a familiar gray shape about halfway between him and his stand. The deer was walking across the field with its head held low, but the sky was light enough for Kevin to determine that it was a buck.
Kevin might have shot then, but the buck was angling toward him. When it was at 50 yards and ...