presumably big, that might be the buck he was looking for, and that didn’t know he was there, did it for him. He thought it had to hear his heart pounding at any second. Then it would be gone.

It didn’t seem to realize he was there though. A little sound now and then told him the animal was climbing the side of the waterway, the same side the stand was on, and quite close to it. Whatever it was, it moved slowly out into the clearing.

Patrick waited until he was sure it had to be far enough away that it wouldn’t see him, then finished his slow walk to the stand. He climbed up and loaded his rifle.

He realized that the animal he’d heard must have walked rightmight be a six pointer. It was small, but bigger than anything he had gotten before. Still, it was opening day and he wasn’t quite ready to use his tag on it when he knew there were bigger bucks out there. I had shown him a picture from the game cam of an eight pointer that had been in the same clearing just a couple days before…just a few yards from the stand he was sitting in right then.

He told me he couldn’t remember what alerted him that there was another buck in the woods. He looked and there was nothing there, but it seemed to materialize right before his eyes.

The buck stepped into the clearing and Patrick counted, “One, two, three, four, five, six,” a six pointer,