Friday, November 13, 2009
A buck for the books
John Feazell was hunting with his bow because he loaned his muzzleloader to his father that morning.
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
mark.taylor
@roanoke.com
981-3395
Mark Taylor
Outdoors coverage
- Notebook: Outer Banks beach-driving plan kicks up sand
- Outdoors commentary: Many Sunday hunting cons
- Winter tourneys invite fishermen out in the cold
- Visit our Outdoors page
The Wild Life blog
When he was a tyke, John Feazell would tag along with his dad on deer hunts.
Saturday he got a chance to pay his dad back for his father's lifetime of guidance.
"Friday I killed a decent eight-pointer with my muzzleloader," said Feazell, a 35-year-old who lives in Clifton Forge. "Dad doesn't have a muzzleloader so I offered to let him use mine and I would just take my bow."
A few hours after his hunt began Feazell was standing over an enormous white-tailed buck that may end up being the heaviest-antlered deer killed by a bowhunter in Virginia.
"I'm still in a daze," said Feazell, a 35-year-old timber technician with the U.S. Forest Service.
John Feazell and his father, Mike, reached their hunting grounds on private land in Botetourt County on Tinker Mountain in the pre-dawn darkness and headed for their stands.
It's a place they've been hunting for about three decades.
John Feazell headed for a ladder stand that's been in place for three seasons.
The action started a bit after first light.
"I saw a deer coming up through the woods," said Feazell, who realized the deer was a nice buck. "I said, 'That's a shooter.'"
Then he saw that the deer had a drop tine, the term for a point that hangs down off the deer's main beam.
Had he been carrying his muzzleloader, the hunt might have ended then.
"He got to probably 50 yards and I thought, 'Man, if only I had my muzzleloader,'" Feazell thought.
Instead, Feazell could only watch helplessly as the trophy whitetail eased away.
Feazell had more action, but he kept thinking about the big buck and was formulating a plan for how he would come back and hunt for the trophy.
Eventually a doe moved in to the area. Another deer was following it.
Feazell saw the rack.
"I thought, 'That's my buck!'" he remembered.
The doe bedded down, and the buck did the same, only 50 yards away. The wait gave him time to count points, and he came up with about 17.
"That was the longest 40 minutes of my life," said Feazell, who admitted that he actually prefers hunting spring gobblers to hunting deer. "My knees were shaking so bad I finally had to sit down."
Feazell said he watched the deer, which was just 30 yards away, for about 40 minutes.
By then a smaller buck had come in to the area so Feazell had an idea. He pulled out a special snort-wheeze call that mimics an aggressive buck.
"I could see the hair on the buck's back just stand up and roll forward," Feazell said.
The doe got up, and so did the buck, which got to a range of about 25 yards.
Feazell drew and shot.
And missed.
"I guess the arrow hit a branch and deflected," Feazell said.
Feazell didn't have much time to be disappointed.
After hopping a few steps away, the buck calmed down and turned its attention back to the doe. Feazell snort wheezed again and the buck came back.
A moment later it was stepping into a shooting lane at a range of just 18 yards.
"The Good Lord wanted me to kill that buck," he said. "I've had does, that when I blink an eye, they bolt."
Feazell watched his broadhead-tipped arrow hit the animal in it's rib cage, and a few seconds later watched the buck tumble.
"No one is more deserving of this than him," said Feazell's brother-in-law, Chris Vess. "He's a dedicated hunter who has put his time in."
When he reached his deer Feazell realized he'd been conservative on his point counting.
"I knew he was the biggest buck I'd ever killed in my life," he said. "But I wasn't expecting that."
The deer was checked in as a 25-pointer, but will probably end up with 22 points that meet the 1-inch minimum for official scoring.
A 60-day drying period is required before the rack can be officially scored under the Boone and Crockett system, which is used for all-time whitetail records, and the Pope and Young Club's official bowhunting records.
Two friends have measured the antlers to get an idea of its score, and both came up with figures in the 220 range.
Virginia's top bow-killed buck listed in the Pope and Young record book scored 197 38 and was killed by Anthony Hodges in 2006 in Henry County.
"But until it's officially scored I don't even want to speculate," Feazell said.
Feazell couldn't wait to reach his dad with the news, and was thinking something the whole time.
"I was just hoping he got something," he said.
It turned out his dad had gotten a shot at an eight-point buck, but missed.
His dad may get more chances.
Now that Feazell has punched both of his buck tags, he's in no hurry to get his muzzleloader back any time soon.
