Scott Pickles writes, "The morning started off just after light around 7:15. I hiked to the top of the ridge and just crested it so I could get a good 180 view of the east side of the hill. Immediately, I picked up on movement just 65 yards in front of me on the back side of a mesquite tree. I pulled up my glass to see if I could grow some horns on the movement. Horns there were, he was a nice size 8-point with good body mass. I glassed the area to make sure there weren’t too many eyes on me and picked up on only 1 mature doe. I laid out my course in my mind, as I needed to close the gap to a more comfortable range for my rookie shooting ability. As I made my way down the hill, I lost track of the deer, so I went to the point that I last saw them. I found a bunch of deer droppings, so I checked them to see if they were new or not. They were hard and probably a couple days old. As I stood up, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. I quickly turned and came to a full draw only to be face to face about 40 yards to the doe. She quickly moved off and the buck was right behind her, but didn’t give me a shot. Quietly, I made my way around the bend to see if I could get in shooting position. As I rounded the boulder, I found myself looking into the eyes of this big buck which had presented me with a broadside shot at just over 60 yards. At this point, knowing he saw me advancing on him, I thought this would be my only shot. I came to a full draw on him, put my 60 yard pin at the top of his back, took a deep breath and let it rip.

Unfortunately, I got a little buck fever and had a clean miss on him. He made a couple quick trots and turned the corner of the mountain, I thought my opportunity to harvest this beast was over. I cut the corner of the mountain by going up and over in hopes that I could cut him off on the other side. A few minutes had passed and soon I saw the doe peak her head out from behind a bush. Knowing the buck would soon follow, I came to a full draw and waited, less than 15 seconds went by and out came the buck. It was a broadside shot at 35 yards slightly quartering away. We’ve practiced this shot a million times, I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger on the release. Those Easton Flatline arrows lead by some sick Muzzy broadheads flew true to course and double lunged that beast. He ran down the hill not 75 feet and face planted into the bushes. I was stoked!!!"

(The second photo is the buck Scott took and the lower photo is a buck Scott never did get a chance at)