The Nolan Buck: An Adirondack Hunting Story from Nolan Voris' hunting journal

In this series, Adirondack hunter Nolan Voris shares entries from his journal on his Adirondack hunts.

Nolan C. was born Nov. 11, 2018. I had planned to still make the second half of the week hunting for the due date was a week ago. With this said, the guys were there and I was home. I wont lie, I asked Kaitlin if I could still go. Nov. 11 was a Sunday so I questioned heading north Wednesday night. Needless to say that was denied. However, her aunt was coming out from Ohio and stayed with us that week. I was able to hunt near home. There wasn’t much I could do for a new born anyway.

Hunting at home was cool for it snowed that week. Although I could not track for there is no room do to so I was able to see far and set myself up on a ridge where I knew the deer were moving.

Also, it was bow season. Hunting with a long bow in a blind has its challenges. I missed a small buck early in the week. Still at it I saw a giant that same night! The next day I went back with no sighting.

Day 3 was dead for the majority but I promised myself I would sit until dark; and as dark approached I un-knocked my arrow and no sooner did the giant step out at 15 yards. What luck… My heart pounding I struggled to get the arrow knocked without being seen. Draw my bow and he jump back to 30 yards. I was confident and let the arrow fly. No blood as he runs away. While it was very exciting, and successful as far as hunting goes, I was not successful with my shooting. But still a great experience.

A couple weeks later we hosted Thanksgiving which was a lot of work for us having a newborn. But we didn’t want to travel; It was a double-edged sword. Having a successful get together we cleaned up and I had a plan to head north with Dad that night. We slept for a few hours into the night and took off around 12:00 midnight, arriving at the cabin around 4:00 am. With little sleep we got up slowly and headed off for the hunt. Just the two of us on this one.

Driving to the [Unnamed] parking area the truck showed -12 degrees. I like the cold, but this was a new low and an extra layer kind of day. We moved slowly up the property line trail to the corner where we typically stop to finalize our plans. Doing this, something caught my eye about 50 yards away. Snow fell off a tree for no reason… Thinking something was off I stopped talking and focused in. nothing else moved so we wrote it off. As we separated, dad going straight in and I stayed along the trail, the deer jumped up and ran off. Dad saw antlers but had no shot. I guess my eyes weren’t lying 5 minutes earlier. The deer was there motionless watching us until we started moving.

We got back together and decided to double team the track. Keep in mind, the snow was an average of 2.5 feet deep. In some spots in the drifts, it was up to our waste. We had taken snow shoes and decided that we didn’t need them, so moving was slow. We waited 15 minutes and got on the track. The deer ran for a hundred yards or so and started walking.

I was following the track and Dad was a step or two behind scanning for the deer. Walking in a zig zag I felt the deer was still watching us. There was one spot he walked up a small ridge and stood looking back. I could see where we had walked so I felt we should have seen the deer. We need to look closer, that could have been the opportunity I thought.

We followed that deer for a few hours, across the [Unnamed Road] and up the next ridge where it got on a deer highway. That’s my term for a trail that is beaten down for all the deer in the area use it. Especially when the snow is high. We thought this deer is cruising now and we likely wont catch it. Also, we saw another hunter sitting. We let it be figuring the deer went past the other hunter un-noticed, or we lost the track along the way. The latter being the likely for we were still newer to tracking. The rest of the day was spent still hunting and we found no more deer.

The next morning back at the [Unnamed Road] parking area it was +12 degrees. Same start to the day walking up to the corner marker. Yesterday was -12 and today is +12, that means it is a killing day obviously! Today we switched up and I went straight, Dad followed the property line trail toward the mountain. Still-hunting a heavily run deer trail I would stop every few steps and look trough the thick mixed woods. I like to use my buck grunt often, although today I had been using a doe bleat for I had lost my grunt in the woods the day prior.

A few minutes into separating 2 does jumped up and ran down towards Dad. They were not in front of me but to the side. I felt I did not scare them so I stood still for a minute then flipped the doe bleat. Instantly I say a head turn and look and take a few steps. It was a deer slowly walking about 75 yards away. Looking through my binoculars I noticed a nice rack of antlers. Needing no further info I slowly dropped the binoculars and picked up my Remington model 760 outfitted with a Williams peep sight. Waited for the buck to step out from behind the trees and shot once. He was standing behind a stum so I placed the bead just over the stump. Immediately the deer hunched up, head down, turned and walked/stumbled away. I didn’t feel I needed to shoot again but it turns out I should have. I had the time but not the perceived need.

Within a few minutes dad had walked back up and I had started looking for signs of a hit. There were no signs yet. No hair, no blood, no obvious tracks. The snow was not fresh so there were old tracks everywhere and aging tracks was not yet in my skillset. I was heartbroken. By the way he walked/stumbled off I was certain I had drilled him. Yet here we are with nothing to show that. After taking a few wider circles to see if anything came up Dad found a bunch of hair. I had made the mistake of not pinpointing the spot he was standing when I shot. I was so confident I wrote it off. Anyhow, that’s where the hair was.

As it turns out I did hit him but the hair was not positive for it was mostly white. This means I maybe scraped his underside hitting low. Knowing I at least hit him we took a few more circles to see if any blood came up. Still nothing…Takin what seemed to be the newest track in the direction he went for about 200 yards we found 1 tiny spec of blood. As it will turn out that blood was not from him, but at the time we though it could have been. At this point we wrote it off as the deer is fine, I just skinned his belly. We went off in separate ways and hunted the day. Me, with my head down with a feeling of defeat.

I decided to get back to the corner early to take one last look while waiting for Dad. Turns out he had the same idea. As I was walking up I heard Dad yelling, “I found your buck!” in disbelief I walked fast up to him. He said again, “I found your buck!” Heart pounding again I didn’t know how to react. The rest of the hunting day sucked as I just stumbled through the woods not even looking for deer anymore. Now the excitement came back but it was mixed feelings, a roller-coaster of emotions not knowing what had happened or what I’m about to learn.

Anyhow he starts to tell me what he did when he got back. Basically he had the same idea I had to get back early and meander around in hopes we missed something. He was walking off to the side of where we already looked and saw a tinny spec of blood, then a puddle of blood, then a deer laying down dead. It was curled up as if he was laying there alive. It hurts me to know the deer was likely in pain but had still expired early in the day for it was cold when I walked up.

The typical warm blood that that warms your hands when gutting a deer was not the case. This was ice cold. Another hour and it would have started to freeze. This was not easy to control our hands it was so clod. Again +12 degrees this day. Turns out the bullet had entered the stomach area. The shot was way off, low and back. I'll spare you the gruesome details but everything was mush. The deer likely felt a horrible stomachache and went to sleep. Nonetheless, we found him and his death was not in vain.

As all the deer I have shot and the deer I have missed do, this one sticks in my memory as a constant reminder to aim true and take good note on where a deer is standing when you shoot and the last place you see him. These are very important notes. Looking back, it is likely a good thing we did not find his blood trail in the morning for we likely would have spooked him. Then we could have lost him, but we didn’t. and we didn’t loose him at the end. The emotions were hard that day, but we stuck to it and everything worked out.  

BIG WOODS BUCKS CONTRIBUTORS: Big Woods Bucks is dedicated to promoting woodsman skills by showcasing the best filmmakers and writers the Big Woods has to offer. If you have a film or article that you believe showcases the Big Woods well, has educational value, and promotes woodsmanship and hunting skills, email content manager Brian Connor at bhconnor@bigwoodsbucks.com with a link to your video or a copy of your article, and BWB may publish it!