FIVE MORE MINUTES

It was the hustle and bustle of a typical Minnesota slug hunting morning at the Brockhouse’s.  Six a.m. came early, but we were getting ready for what my husband said would be a busy morning in the woods.  We grabbed our gear and headed out the door for what became a historical day that I know our family will never forget!  About fifteen feet up, I sat in a tree stand named Shorty and surveyed a city of nature that was waking up around me.  My husband, Brad, was in another tree stand maybe two hundred yards to my left and just a little behind me.  It was November 6^th, 2010.  It was a brisk and breezy morning and the woods were coming to life.  Just before dawn the traffic began, a few does here and a few there…a couple fork horns to follow and the story begins.  Sitting in my stand I was saying a prayer, I didn’t get time for my devotions that morning as we had already been up early to get ready for our big day.  I was thanking God for what surrounded me.  My husband to my left and my boys in stands to my right, along with our good friend Gene, and the beauty of nature that I had the privilege to be hunting in.  As I was talking to God that November morning, I asked for an opportunity to shoot a big buck.  He heard me…and He answered!!  Time was ticking by and I was mouthing to Brad how much longer we needed to be sitting.  He motioned “five” with his hand for five more minutes, but what he was really thinking is at least twenty.  What he won’t do to please me!!  The conditions were perfect and Brad knew it.  Off to my left on the ridge by the railroad tracks stood a nice little four point that was standing broad side just begging for me to shoot.  And behind me another small buck in the same position, ready, aim, fire and he was mine.  A doe in heat was lurking around and had a frenzy of bucks that were licking their lips with their noses to the ground ready for some romance!  As my eyes were roaming from left to right, I was about to experience a hunt of a lifetime.  To my right coming in about forty yards down below me is exactly what my husband has dreamed about for over twenty years.  My heart started thumping into my throat as my eyes kept moving from one, two, three, four bucks…and then, nose to the ground, the largest buck I had ever seen in my life!  I was about to have an anxiety attack fifteen feet in the air with a loaded gun!  As I pulled the gun to my shoulder I cannot explain the emotions that flooded my soul.  Every limb had turned to jello, my heart had now been skipping beats and my eyes were going blurry.  For the life of me, I could not get this monster in my scope, I was praying and panicking as this massive deer was ever so slowly walking below.  I would look into my scope, seeing nothing but black or the bark of trees, and then pull my eyes back and see him with the naked eye.  I can’t tell you the number of times I did this.  I finally shot!  I can’t remember if I even had him in my sights but I knew I needed to pull the trigger.

 

 

 BOOM!  That twelve gage fired as this legacy ran past me…unharmed and on a dead run!  As he ran past I was able to see the mass in his antlers.  A nauseous feeling came over me as I had failed to harvest this buck of a lifetime.  Then, not a few seconds later came another BOOM.  Brad had shot…it happened so fast he wasn’t exactly sure even what he was shooting but knew he was BIG!!!  The bucks continued running over the ridge and out of sight.  We got down from our stands as I was in a panic.  Brad did not know the magnitude of this deer that I had watched for over a minute right under my feet.  He thought he hit him but was not sure.  Brad found some blood just before the ridge but knew the shot was further back.   As we walked out of the woods I moped and hung my head low.  I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream.  No one could imagine what I witnessed on that tree stand.  No one could imagine the frustration I felt as I could not get this legend in my scope.  I didn’t want to leave those woods…I wanted that buck on my wall!  We went home and thought we’d give it a few hours, thinking that if he was shot it was further back and we didn’t want to push him.  Brad began going over the sequence of events that had transpired not but a half hour earlier.  He grabbed a little toy buck that was laying on the floor in our living room.  He took that toy buck and pointed his finger mid-center on that deer and said, “This is where I hit that buck.”  The years of hunting instinct took over as Brad pulled that trigger.  We were hopeful but unsure if we were successful.  I had a church luncheon that noon so I reluctantly went, knowing that Brad, Gene and the boys were going to go looking for the buck.  They set out just before noon.  Brad had put his stocking cap where he had found the first blood from leaving our tree stands that morning.  They headed over the ridge, and not ten yards into it Gene had spotted what he first thought was a large rock.  Brad pulled up his binoculars to get a better look.  First the body, and then a massive antler!  As Brad went running up, he had no idea what magnitude of a deer he had just killed.  He was in disbelief, his hands running through his hair circling around this monarch…it was a deer of a lifetime!  As Brad got down, he gripped his antlers in his hands and thanked the good Lord for what had become the best animal he has ever harvested, and probably ever will.  The shot…was exactly where Brad had remembered it.

 Our twelve-year-old Cody had realized that this was the buck that we had pictures of from our trail camera since 2008.  Brad is a very avid bow hunter and has hunted these woods since he was a boy.  Little did this buck realize that he was already part of the family!  He’d had been on our fridge for two years along side the pictures of our three boys.  They named him ‘Pig’ and they figure he will score almost 170.  He has a broken tine and a knarled face…he’s been fighting for a long time.  We guess him to be about six and a half years old, he was a large deer with incredible mass and size.  The tree stand Brad was sitting in was named ‘Larry Lustfield’.  Brad bought that stand from Larry Lustfield when he was fourteen years old.  Larry had (and still has) a barber shop in town, at one time he sold guns and hunting supplies out of his shop. Brad paid for half of that tree stand and his parents for the other half.  That fall, in 1988, he hung that tree stand and harvested his first bow kill.  He’s had to replace it since the name and place remains.  The irony of that name is that Larry Lustfield shot the last buck of this caliber in the late 70’s in this same Southwest Minnesota County.  I had received a call from Brad as I left the church luncheon that they had found the buck!  It was a half hour drive back home to see the legendary buck my husband had shot. As I raced back to Lake Benton I pulled up to the gas station where they were waiting.  On the back of Brad’s Land Rover was the most unbelievable animal I have ever seen!  My knees got weak and my mouth dropped.  The car door flew open as I stumbled out to hold God’s masterpiece in my hands and relic in the awe of what had taken place that November morning.  It was a hunt of a lifetime, one I will never forgot.  That morning I experienced something that I will probably never witness again.  As the afternoon went on, my boys and I went back out to our tree stands to end the first day of Minnesota slug hunting.  I climbed up in my stand and stood out to reminisce of the day that had been.  I had now changed guns, rightfully so, and was practicing my aim on the ground where ‘Pig’ had been.  My emotions over came me once again as I could not believe the experience the Lord had blessed me with.  It was bittersweet, I so badly wanted to harvest that deer myself, but my husband was much more deserving than me as he has put in the time and made the most unbelievable shot!   The night was quiet in the woods, a few does had past by and the sun was just about to set.  As I looked back to Brad’s empty tree stand, out of trees came a wide little eight-point all by himself, walking ever so slowly, about thirty yards from my stand.  As he was walking down the hill, I pulled up the gun.  I swallowed the large lump in my throat, and put my crosshairs on him and pulled the trigger.  His back legs kicked up as he ran down the hill, I heard the leaves crumble below his feet as he disappeared before my eyes.  Brad came to meet me, and not twenty-five yards from where I had fired, lay the buck I had killed!  The day had been a success!  I was exhausted with emotion and overcome with joy as I closed this day with a buck of my own.  The euphoria I felt from the greatest hunt is one that will pump through my veins for years to come.  It was a historic day for Brad, me, our boys and Gene.  It was a day that will always be remembered.  Brad and Gene had caped out the buck that night, and for the first time in Brad’s twenty plus years of hunting history, he choked up as he laid the buck in the freezer.  This nocturnal monarch’s life was finished and his legacy was engraved in our hearts.  The day will go down in Brockhouse history as a day of answered prayers and faithful pursuit.  A day that five more minutes meant a hunt of a lifetime.  A day that the Lord hath made!!

 

By:  Sandy Brockhouse

www.turkeycreeklabradors.com