 SECRET
MAN-DRIVE TACTICS FOR TROPHY BUCKS
First Drive Secret
EDITOR’S NOTE: I could see the drivers 100 yards
below my stand and to my left moving through the clearcut
like beagles working thick cover to roust out a rabbit.
A thrush squawked as it flew out of the blackberry thick
to my right. From the sounds the bird made, I knew it
had been frightened. I turned my head quickly and looked
in the direction from which the bird had come. I could
see a crown of ivory above the brambles. With my .243
at the ready, I dropped my cheek to the stock of the
rifle and spotted antlers in my riflescope. Before the
buck reached the edge of the clearcut, he had to step
into a small opening. Moving my rifle to focus on the
opening, I concentrated on that spot by looking through
my scope. First I saw a nose. Then eyes, ears and a
head full of antlers appeared in my scope. After moving
the crosshairs to just behind the front shoulder of
the buck, I pushed off the safety. While gently resting
my finger on the trigger, my gun reported. The buck
went  down.
After dragging my trophy from the briars, I sat on a
stump admiring my fine 10-point buck. While I waited
for my friends, who were acting as drivers, to come
to my stand and help me drag my buck out of the woods,
I remembered when I went on my first deer drive.
Frost glistened on the blackberry bushes on this very
cold morning in Alabama. My cotton longjohns didn’t
hold in much body heat. I put my head inside my shirt
and blew warn air on my chest. “I never should
have sat on the edge of this cotton field,” I
told myself. “If a deer comes from the swamp,
it won’t run across this open ground. Instead
it will go deeper into the swamp or to the hardwoods
on the other side of the deep, briar thicket through
which my dad says the drivers will come, A trophy buck
certainly won’t run through this cotton field
in broad daylight with this many hunters in the woods.”
Just as many runners begin their races with excuses
about why they can’t win, on my first deer drive,
I automatically thought of reasons why a deer wouldn’t
pass by my stand and assumed that probably I had drawn
the worst stand on the hunt. However, because I had
to sit on the stand until the completion of the drive,
I looked at every bird, each blade of grass and every
tree to entertain myself. After scanning the woods in
front of me from left to right, I retraced the path
my eyes had taken moments earlier. When I glance at
a  scaley-barked
hickory tree 40 yards from my stand, I saw what looked
like a white limb move. I watched the limb, and it moved
again. “That’s an antler tip,” I told
myself. “A buck must be behind that tree.”
As my index finger rested on the safety, less than 50-yards
away I heard the words sung out, ‘Yodee, yodee,
yodee.” That crazy brother of mine, Archie, will
spook that buck, and I won’t get a shot,”
I thought. “If Archie runs off that deer, we’ll
have a fist fight to rival the Hatfields and the McCoys,”
Amazingly enough, the buck didn’t flee. Instead
I watched as the buck’s head appeared from behind
the hickory, looking in the direction my brother walked.
Because I didn’t have a clear shot at the deer’s
vitals, I froze. The buck wouldn’t move, and I
couldn’t move. The “yodee, yodee, yodee”
kept getting closer and closer. As Archie drew parallel
to the deer, I decided I’d have to take a running
shot at the buck when Archie spooked him. But, the deer
let Archie pass. Once my brother reached a point about
75 yards in front of the deer, the 9 point stuck his
neck out from behind the tree and went down the path
heading for the cotton field. Because the wind blew
in my favor, the buck never saw or smelled me. I held
my shot until the deer was 15-yards away. I then fired
my 12 gauge. Although this first shot brought the deer
down, before the report of the shell had diminished,
I  fired
a follow-up shot. When you’re 16-years old, you
can’t withhold the excitement and the joy you
feel when you take your first buck on a deer drive.
I immediately screamed as loud as I could, “I
got him! I got him! I got him! Come here, Archie! Look
at this buck.” On that morning, I learned one
of the most-critical ingredients to bagging big deer
on a man drive. Big bucks often move behind drivers
rather than in front of them.
TOMORROW: SOUTHERN RABBIT HUNTS
FOR TROPHY BUCKS
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