Forty-six years after checking out library books about deer hunting, this Kentuckian learns the most invaluable tool is perseverance.
White-tailed deer sightings were rare in south-central Kentucky in the 1960s. William Branscum’s father didn’t hunt deer because there were none.
The elder Branscum taught his son valuable outdoors skills. He also taught him how to hunt ’coons and squirrels. But he had no knowledge of whitetails to pass on to William.
“I’ve lived in Wayne County all my life,” William said. “I was 19 before they had the first deer season here. I didn’t know anything about hunting them, so I went to the library and checked out all the books I could find on the subject. I also bought some.”
William still has a copy of the iconic deer hunting classic “Shots at Whitetails” written by Lawrence Koller in 1948. After reading it and other books, he set out to hunt his first deer.
“I hunted 12 years before I took one,” he said. “I hunted with a longbow and with a rifle. I killed my first buck with a .30-30 in 1982. They were just hard to come by back then.”
In 46 years of chasing whitetails, the self-taught deer hunter learned a lot and took several nice bucks. He became a three-season hunter, using rifle, bow and muzzleloader.
From 1978 through 1981, Kentucky’s deer herd jumped from an estimated 64,000 to 149,000 animals, and the state fish and wildlife agency instituted a county zoning designation with varying season lengths and bag limits.
During that same period, an ongoing restoration and stocking program was ramped up and completed everywhere but the southeastern part of the state. Then, between 1989 and 1991, the switch was made from a two-buck to a one-buck limit, a move widely credited with helping create the state’s modern day success in growing trophy-sized bucks.
In 1999, restoration across the entire state was completed, and that process ended. By 2014, the state’s whitetail herd had surpassed a million animals.
William witnessed all these things. He saw the annual deer harvest numbers rise steadily to 155,000 animals in 2015, 1,000 of which came out of his home county.
One of those was his best buck to date.
William hunts primarily out of ground blinds.
“I can’t walk as much as I used to,” he said. “For a long time, I used ladder stands. But lately I’ve been hunting more out of ground blinds because they’re easier to get in and out of.
“It’s a little bit spooky at times, though, with the growing bear population we have in Wayne County,” he added.
The area William hunts is teeming with black bears. The county is a regular leader in the number of bruins taken each year in the recently established season.
“I’ve got one pop-up blind I leave out the year ’round,” William said. “It’s getting to be a little ragged, but it’s in a good spot. It’s out in the mountains a pretty good ways and up close to the top. Deer run the bench on the level just below it.
“I drive my four-wheeler right up to it. I’ve found the deer get used to the vehicle; they don’t seem to be spooked by it. Sometimes, I’ll park it a little past the blind to hide it.
“I have a heater to go in the blind in cold weather. I don’t smoke, and I’ve had real good success with deer not smelling me while I’m in blinds, even with the heater going,” he said.
In 2015, he hunted every day of the modern gun season and six during muzzleloader season.
The sixth day, Dec. 17, was cold and wet. It was drizzling rain, and the temperature was barely above freezing when William arrived at his mountaintop blind at daybreak. He wasted no time in lighting his heater.
After slipping a cap on his pre-loaded T/C .50 caliber, he focused on the bench below him.
“After a while, the rain slacked off,” William said. “About 15 minutes before 9:00, I picked up my radio and called my friend, Bradford Southwood, who was hunting in the next hollow.
“While we were talking, a big doe came into sight. I told Bradford ‘I’d better get off here. There might be a big buck following this doe.’
“I put the radio away, glanced to my left and saw a rack coming through the woods,” he said.
“I thought Lord, there’s an awful lot of points there! I made up my mind right away I was going to shoot it.
“The buck was straight over the hill from me about 40 yards away, watching the doe. I had a clear shot at the deer’s neck, and because I’ve been successful with those over the years, that’s where I aimed,” he continued.
“At the shot, the deer just twisted around and fell. By the time the smoke cleared, it had quit moving.
“Bradford called and asked if I’d shot the doe. I told him I hadn’t, that I was right about a buck following her. He then said he’d be right over,” William added.
William sat in the blind for 20 minutes, quietly waiting for his friend to arrive while listening to the soft patter of rain overhead. Just as the faint smell of gunpowder had dissipated, he heard Bradford’s four-wheeler coming up the mountain.
This article was published in the April 2017 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.
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