sometime in the summer of 2008 while watching a small food plot with a camera……….fourteen bucks flowed into the coming twilight to feed on a good clover stand………..that last buck in was special……..he knew it……i knew it……….he was narrow in width…..but tall with decent mass. and…….he gave no quarter to the rest. they just parted when ever he wanted to move on. i never saw him again until i got an image of him on my first trail cam in late november. what an animal he was………he knew it. i knew it. i proceeded to get many images of him the rest of the winter………and that spring i picked up one side of his sheds. i knew then that this was the beginning of a journey we both would take.

the summer of 2009 i watched him come to the bean field……….he put on massive antler growth so early…..so way ahead of any other buck in the group. the back side of the farm next door was in corn…….and in late august i picked up a broken antler beam still in velvet…….the tip and g7 area of the right side. it was at the base of a massive field prerimeter pin oak. by then i had named the buck the pine ghost……….and when i got the first fall trail cam photos ……..there he was with his right side missing the part i had picked up. he was still with great mass and brow junk………and he knew who he was and every other whitetail on the farm knew it also.

i picked up a matched set of his 2010 sheds……..in the fall of 2011……..i found the right side of his 2009 shed…..a little chewed by tree rats but never the less…….it was the pine ghost’s………and by then he was the zen of my soul……….but i never laid eyes on him in bow season……….never. a neighbor trapping the marsh next door jumped a big massive bodied deer bedded one morning running his line………went over to where the animal had gotten up……….and picked up both sides of the pine ghost for 2011. he was of tremendous mass and height that year………..stickers on both sides……..tremendous junk on his bases. and he shredded his favorite rub cedar trees……..just shredded them.

i was careful ……….at least i tried to be……….i ignored the killing of does…………..getting my two out of the way opening up my second buck tag…….but then i would stop shooting does. i never saw him. the cameras told me he was there of course. it slowly became obvious that his main core area surrounded my farm……..and we’re talking in some cases a hundred yards or less. i never saw him.

my partner…..danckingkathy would see him on a regular basis, running with our two boarder collies…….he would just walk out in front of her……….and she went by him bedded between two cutovers on one run……he just watched her go by and was still there bedded on her return trip. i never saw him.

by then we both knew this was a game to the end of two warriors growing old. he told me so ever chance he got with out ever letting me see him. in 2012 he had a massive scrape fifty yards from my kitchen door……and showed up on camera at 4:35 pm one after noon while i was in a tree a half mile away………he looked at the kitchen door ….smirked and walked off. right across the field and crossed in front of dancingkathy sitting by the old hairie house reading a book ……sunning herself with the two boarder collies. the pups just watched him cross on into the new pines behind the farm house. he paid them no mind.

he was magnificent in 2012 again……..but yohon and bob and gino and joe and randy …..by looking at the trail photos seemed to think he was over the hump and not what he was yesterday……….i didn’t care. he ran the hell out of does in 2012 and managed to be on camera only in the dark. but it had dawned on me………and i went back and started looking at my images……..except for during the rut …………he moved only on the moon transit……..mostly on the over head…….and no more for two hours ever during the day. but i had him nailed trail camera wise and i got many images of him during those two hours or so of transit time……..as the transit travelled across the clock face night time wise. he sheded always much earlier than the other bucks……..there’ weren’t many othe bucks……..ever on camera………….he wouldn’t allow it.

earlier in 2012 while i was in montana at our place out there…………he simply vanished from the camera eye. that year my great bud barto had put in two food plotts of turnips while i was away………put up new stands and pretty much made it the year to happen when i got back…………….but he wasn’t on camera. when i got back in the fall…….my brother mentioned that a huge buck was feeding on freelance clover by his generator no one house……….that night i got the pine ghost on camera again. in our back yard.

i could only find one side…….the right side of him……and he shed out in early january last year……….my cousin found the left side in the winter wheat field next door…………i had looked at most of that field but somehow i missed it. the header on his big combine didn’t miss it. to the tune of some 7,000.00 dollars of internal damage. i never saw him in the daylight during bow season. but dancingkathy did on her fall break from teaching at vassar…….and she saw him during rifle season also………again he walked in front of her while she was on a run.

of course by now every one in the county knows about this buck………and a lot of locals are on him as hard as they can be……..the guy that found his sheds in ’11……..all rifle season……all black powder season……….just road back and forth in his rig early morning ……….and from three on every afternoon……….just creeping……up and down the long lane…………..i watched him with glasses…………..what a hunter he is………….back and forth just waiting for that magnificent animal to run in front of him. in 2012 i had to put a brand new engine in big red………after 438,000 miles ……her 6.5 diesel had enough so i just put a new state of the art 6.5 back in her…….but i didn’t make the run to winter over in montana that year…….i hunted back here on the shore hard…….i hunted the pg hard………..he knew it………he knew every thing there was to know about me. i even got up one morning at 3 am……….and at this point in life………..i have not much desire to do that for anything…..but i did it…….because i had picked up that he was leaving the winter wheat field on the over head transit which was just about at dawn for a couple of days………….i was halfway up the tree to the stand when in the moon light i looked into the winter wheat field and there he stood……..some 18 yards away……..watching me………watching me………just watching me. i finished my climb……..and watched him just walk away………

i climbed right back down……came home…….put my cloths back into the container and went back to bed.

but then february came…….another month of crop permits to shoot all the does i could shoot……….all the gun seasons where over………and i knew he had made it through again because i had him on camera with two big holes in his head growing closed………shooting does makes you shoot only close up positive knowing what it is that time of the year around here.

on may the twenty six of this year……..at 8:00 pm……….i knew i had him in the field with the big nikor 500 mm lense……….he already was putting on height and mass………and every other buck in the field was just budding out…………..we watched each other……….he would let me do that in the summer…….but when it became to obvious…….he always left the field…….the other deer would just eat beans and bob their heads………he would simply leave the field……..on august the first of this year i caught him on camera ………he was by then what he would be this year……still in velvet……..but what an image i got. i left for montana that day…..driving

big red with my border collie……….dancingkathy was already there with her boarder collie………2640 miles in three days……..i’m getting two damn old to keep doing this on that time frame………….i end up being no good for two days after i get there or back here.

i left montana for here on the shore on september 30th this year……………….got home……..had no images of him what so ever………my brother had stopped seeing him……….barto or yohon hadn’t been able to get down and watch…………then a neighbor came by and told me…….” guess you heard your deer is dead………boy in winks the great local sporting shop………said his buddy shot him the first week in september across from my farm in the cut over they hunt…………….shot and lost him. then victor…….victor who is probably one of the grreatest fish and game wardens we have ever had down here……..stopped by and told me the same thing. victor is retired now fish and game…….works for the sheirff…..still wearing a badge and gun.

my zen is crashing………i’m two damn old for this………..my desire to even go to the woods is gone………i have no images of him …….even in places that i should be getting images of him……………and as october comes with the hunters moon……….the dance is gone from my step. i go over to barto’s to hunt sika with yohon and some other great guys………it’s good to hang with great friends…………but what is a sika…….?????? i never see ever any of the damn creatures………oh i hear them bugle…………..bob and yohon put me at the best possible spot to kill one……………and…………i see my first one……..briefly………a spike. somehow i’m just not getting this trail of the sika……..it isn’t working for me.

so i come back to the farm……..and on halloween night with a good north west wind i go to the ridge behind the farm on the farm i lease to hunt. i have on scrape that i made and kept going and when i climb the holly tree i notice a new scrape to my right………a fresh scrape………one that i didn’t start. this may be a good halloween.

the eastern band of purple twilight is coming when i hear just the twinkle of feet in a high tide on the marsh……it was a real high tide……..water was at the woods edge. but i really didn’t pay it much mind……….until i looked and saw an animal…….a deer come up out of the marsh…..working with the cross wind at it’s back…….and then i see that this is a big buck……..a really big buck……..high tines …..great mass……big body………he’s crossing at forty yards and hits a clearing, starts making a scrape in the open at forty yards. i will shoot foam all day at forty yards…….i can hold my own at baltimore at forty yards……sometimes good enough to make joe and yohon take notice……..but i won’t shoot any critter at forty yards.

so i snort wheez him……….and then he turns his head and looks for the snot wheez and i suddenly realize it has to be the pine ghost………i can’t see his brow tines though…….but i see stickers on both sides…….never mind if i can get him in…….i’m going to try and shoot him………i snort wheeze him again………he looks …….hunches his back……….pisses in the scrape down his tarsels and then walks off……….

it has to be him……i text yohon and bob who are long ways away in their own tree stand world…….that the pg lives. twenty minuts later, a big deer is coming in behind me……..i see high tines………….i see mass……..i can’t see body because when it stops at fifteen yards……it’s behind a holy screen…………..and then the purple band of gathering night turns ever so fast to dark and he does what big deer do……….they simply vanish into deer dust.

the pine ghost had circled to come in down wind and see what had dared snort wheeze at him.

in all these years…….since the fall of 2008………i had finally seen the pine ghost ………in daylight ……during bow season……….

i think it was the pine ghost………it had to be.

two nights later one hundred yards east of that stand i hunted the only draw in the area in a great stand by a mssive scrape that i didn’t make with a good south west wind in my face blowing out over the marsh to my back……..and the deer kept coming by me………….two good shooter bucks came by so fast………….i couldn’t begin to shoot…………..and then all hell broke loose to the left and behind me up the holly ridge. yearlings and does where fleeing ……..i hear what sounds like the best bull elk in idaho trashing limbs…….i hear a gutteral growl that few have ever heard……..and the two shooter bucks leave the way they came……..in the same hurry they showed up with but going away. and then i hear one single crash of antlers and then i hear two dear run away big time toward the marsh on the west of me……..i hear them hit the water………..

i have heard the pine ghost claim his kingdom……………..

but he wasn’t back in the pines behind the house yet………….i had been holding the does there with a single working corn pile………….the only one i would use this year………..yohon came down to hunt this monday past…….we went and checked a couple of stands. my cousin started cutting the beans on my hunting lease……when my cousin cuts beans, he moves in the whole farming world……..massive equipment…..rigs to haul……..with the winter cover crop wheat being spread right behind the combine cutting beans and then the cover wheat being disked right in behind all the while they are bush hogging the field edges……..it’s a nosy time……yohon and i came back to my farm house for lunch…………….and when i was almost in the house i looked behind me to the bean field………there he was……..the pg was walking right up the field edge towards us…….i called yohon and he got to see him before he saw us and decided that he had had enough of us knowing he was there. he just ducked into the pines and did what big deer do……..they vanish to deer dust.

it had to be him……………twice now i had seen the pine ghost……..in daylight……..in bowseason…….in all these years. yohon……yeah……yohon got to see him also. he was no longer a figment of the trail cam nor my iimaginenation.

but i would not hunt him in the pine patch……….not until i knew he was on the does and the camera said he wasn’t there……….until friday night………..friday night he was there.

i went hunting last night………….i went to the sherwood forrest stand in the big gum tree…….the massive gum tree………a south west wind was in my face……….the moon……….the moon was in transit over head at five pm.

does started filtering past ……one at a time…….two here……..one over there…….coming across the grown over food plot to water in the pond. two big does where working across the big bean field to my left. a single down came out of the pines….a big doe. she was work across me toward the pond on an angle that would put her at 12 yards going past…….what a shot she would be. but she was safe from me……..i already had my two does down earlier to open up my second buck tag……i would not be shooting at does for the next three weeks or so. i watched her hit the pond woods. for some reason i turned back left and there he was………coming out of the pines on her trail………….like for real he’s coming. not a doubt in my mind……i see the stickers and then my mind refuses to look…….i have to get my bow off the hanger and when i do, my arrow falls off the keeper and is just hanging by the knock………he’s coming at a good walk and by now he’s only 18 yrds out………i get the arrow back on my tefflon rest and now i have to turn and move the bow and me over two big limbs and by now he’s at twelve yards and walking by at an angle………….i know i’m not lined up right…….but i push the bow arm out and put the vpa arrow where it should be and then i bleat to stop him…….he stops……and my push pull to anchor gone has happened……………i think i hit anchor…………i have no idea if i hit anchor…………

i see the vpa hit him a little to far back i think………..i’m not thinking and then by then he’s gone and i hear him hit the bean field and the does are blowing and scattering and ……..well……..i’m fricking feaking out for an old man……..what the hell have i just blown………????????………five years of over and over and over pushing the mind to make sure ……..make sure on this animal. it was the terms of the game………..we had agreed on that.

i sit down and hang the bow back up trying to come to terms with what just happened…………i can’t….the brain has fogged up. after twenty minutes…….that purple glow in the east has turned to night………the transit moon is bright and i put the red head light on and climb down. gather my stuff together and do to see where he crossed the ditch………..he was at twelve yards when i shot…………the ditch is about fifty yards away………i have no blood……until i hit almost to the ditch. i have lots of blood…….good dark blood. i have blood on the frag growing in the ditch. i cross the ditch but i can’t see blood. i scan the bean field with my light but see nothing. then i call yohon for now my mind has gone full blast into you’ve blown it buckaroooooooo …..big time.

but yohon is cool and gets me to just go home………it will be a cool night and he texts barto……….together they make me go home and tell me they will be there at seven in the morn…

i’m out of herradura…….i have good scotch……..i don’t perticularly like good scotch, but i sure as hell did last night. there’s no sleep……….and at five i’m up. takes yohon and jay his friend and bob a long damn time to get there at seven am……..but they do……right on the clock face.

i’m not feeling good about this for i have too damn much of my soul invested and i’m thinking that i didn’t think this through shot wise like i should have……..like i have gone over and over and over so many times the last few years……..but then old men have a habit of going over the last few years about two many things………….long gone past.

but this old man has about reached his stress limit this morn………we go back to the pond. we look at the shot picture and then we walk to the ditch………….there’s the blood……..in the daylight, there are bubbles in the blood. yohon crosses the ditch leading the trail ….then bob…….and me……..jay crosses and we see the frist blood on the standing beans and pull a sight line off of that. jay says he will walk around the field edge to pick up the sight line across from us………….yohon is on it……..the blood trail, big time. the trail takes a turn to the left…..back right a little and then harder to the left……..yohon is looking down when bob suddenly grabs me………now i know bob is feeling good about the amount of blood so i fugure he’s just pumping me up when he really spins me around, looks me in the face and says……….there’s your pine ghost buckaroooooooooooo.

and there he was…………….a six second sixty yard dash at most………………i see the pine ghost……for the third time in the daylight ……..in bow season……….in all the five years two old warriors have played the game……………i see the pine ghost in the daylight again.

i am a lucky old man to have the great friends i have in yohon and bob………..and to meet and spend such a morning with jay…….i miss my great friend richard not being there………………..

those that are close to me……..those that have followed this game between the two of us old warriors …….randy…gino….ernie…..bob palmer………joe…….jim………..paul…………..know that i have wrestled long and hard about just letting the two of us die of old age………but dancing kathy told me three weeks ago when again i was agonizing over this……….she simple said……….it is time to end this game……..you know that

if you don’t do it…….someone is going to do it for you and you are really not going to like that………..

i have seen the pine ghost three times now………in five years of the game …….in the daylight……..in bow season…….all within the last three weeks.

dancingkathy emailed me from vassar………she said it is so sad……….and that she hoped i took time off in my way and my journey through this part of the universe to say what needed saying alone……….and i did………..

it is bitter/sweet…………..