I was so excited for this weekend. 5 straight days of hunting. A dream come true for me. Then Friday I get sick, and I mean SICK. Thrwing up, fever, shakes, hot/cold flashes, etc. I load up in my truck Friday night 3 times and just can't do it. Wake up Saturday and figure dying while hunting is how I always wanted to go. Literally, never been this sick in my life, but I headed out anyways. The fever kept sleep at bay all weekend. Finding a comfortable temperature just wasn't going to happen. Coughing and hacking meant that I was extremely limited in my hunting grounds. If I couldn't conceal my truck and hunt from it, it wasn't hunting there.

I found an awesome string of cedars above my location I call "Duck City" and nestled my FX4 in it around 2am this morning, then tried to catch SOME sleep. Still woke every hour to the hot/cold sweats as my body tried to fight off whatever bug I have. Alarm went off at 6 and I started to make out shapes in the darkness and tweaked my truck into a shooting position if something appeared in my 5-yard wide shooting lane between me and the pond (feeder between pond and myself).

A nice, but broken, buck stepped out, followed by a fork. From the left of my shooting lane, I see a large body come into the picture. None of the other deer see me, but this guy has me pegged instantly. He wasn't sure what I was, but I didn't give him a chance to figure it out.

Slinging my .25-06 quickly out the window, I took a quick snap shot at 80 yards, putting the 100gr corelock through the middle of his neck. DRT.
This is typically NOT my goto gun, I call it my "quarter-whore: because it is the gun I loan to guests. Darn gun has brought down 3 nice bucks this season and has NEVER failed the person behind it. RoadBloack can attest to that, as I made hi shoot his buck with this gun.

Enough words, here's the pics.

Buck was 6.5 yrs old. I'm having a real hard time aging deer on Spade. They all seem to end up older than I thought they were. This is the 2nd buck this year that I shot, thinking he was 4.5, that ended up being 6.5+.

"Duck City"

CS, big roman head and lots of white in the face of that old boy...Good one.

teeth

Can someone age from this? I didn't do the initial tooth aging, and honestly, I am not any good at it.

great looking buck man

Great buck!

I'm no good at aging bucks either but I know what a nice buck looks like. You'll remember this hunt for a long time. Well done brother! Baker

I would say he's 5.5 IMO. Nice buck. Now get some rest. Congrats.

Nice buck

Great buck, congrats, true trooper there.

Sweet buck. 2 of my best friends live on the renderbrook there.

Awesome buck CS. The Spade never fails to produce!

Interesting story and great buck!

Congrats.

Great Buck-Great Story and hope you get feeling better. MERRY CHRISTMAS !

Congrats on your Christmas buck. What a great present!

Great job on a nice buck Chris! Glad you were able to connect on him!

Thanks bud. Yall still hunting my old Longshore lease in Howard, County? I kinda miss that ranch.

No..actually hunting down in Reagan county this year East of Big Lake.

...should have called in today and gone to the doctor. Can't seem to shake this bug.

good looking buck

Congrasts!

Great story and buck!

Best medicine you could take wasn't it?

left out the worse part of the story because I don't want to catch any BS from people, but I'll tell it now.

My fever got over 109. Well, that's what it was the last time I checked it before I completely lost consciousness. Lost an entire day of hunting, and the more that I think about it, the more I realize I almost died.

Anyways, I was heading to the stand for a hunt and blacked out. When I regained consciousness, I was about 50 yards off the main road, truck buried in a bush, back tires slowly turning in the mud. I think I was out for 24 hours. Really not sure, was so scatterbrained. Kinda embarrassing to post. Don't want everyone to think I am THAT crazy. But quite frankly I live for hunting. It is the priority in my life. To die in the field with my gun in my hand would be my ultimate death wish.

Glad to know your still here to tell the story. Having said that, don't ever do that again!