Sunlight filters down through Russian olive branches, lending light and shadow to the buckskin-clad hunter concealed in the thick tangle of brush along the riverbank. The tip of an antler is barely visible in the dense thicket off to his left. His arm muscles are slowly weakening as a drop of sweat slides down his face on this late September evening. The bow in his hand is growing heavier by the second and, at full draw, the longbow soon becomes overwhelming. Even with months of practice and thousands of arrows shot before season, he is soon going to have to let off if the buck doesn’t move.

Danger! The deer is not sure where, but instinct tells him it is close. He sniffs the breeze. He knows if something is upwind he won’t miss it; his sense of smell is ten times that of the human hunter. At the same time he scans the thicket with excellent eyesight. This is his home; he knows every trail and hideout in this place. For years he has eluded predators along this river; man and beast alike have failed to take him time and again. He remembers the stinging pain of a bullet that grazed his shoulder when he was a heavy-horned three point and the snap of a twig that saved him from certain death at the claws of a cougar when he was a yearling. He swivels his ears in all directions trying to pick up any faint sounds from the brush surrounding him. Finally, he decides it is all clear and prepares to take one cautious step forward.

This is it. After all the scouting and preparation, the big whitetail is locked up at ten yards and refusing to move. The hunger’s arm muscles are screaming for release. Only one more step forward and he will have the shot of a lifetime, but the deer isn’t moving. Slowly the hunter lowers his bow from full draw, praying the buck won’t catch the movement in the fading light.

The buck is already on the retreat and bounds backwards and away from the now visible threat in the tangle of branches to his right. A slight movement gave the predator away at the exact moment he lowered the bow in his hands. The old warrior buck disappears into the thick brush on the opposite side of the river.

If only the hunter could have held a few more seconds! But that is hunting, and every bow hunter has been outsmarted, seen, smelled, or heard while in pursuit of white tail deer. Each time a hunter chooses to match wits with animals, he faces the possibility of failure in the pursuit of a kill. But in doing so, these failures teach humility and respect for the animals he hunts. Tomorrow will be a new day—a day for a kill or a day for more lessons learned.

Escaping the hunter the day before only sharpened the already well-honed instincts of the whitetail buck. Even now, as he lies in his favorite day bed, he is keenly aware of the hunter’s presence. Four hours ago, the deer watched from this thicket as the hunter melted into the woods across the river. Although he hasn’t seen him since, or been able to catch his scent, he knows the hunter is still there, someplace, waiting in hiding for a chance to kill him or another of his kind. But it will be a long wait, as this buck will not be using that side of the river for a while, unless it is under cover of darkness.

Four days have passed since the hunter saw the warrior buck and, after having spent every day sitting and glassing the river bottom patiently, he believes that the deer has either left the area or turned nocturnal following their meeting the other day. Years of matching wits with these western whitetails have taught him that you usually get only one chance at a buck like that, causing the deer to change his tactics to ensure his own survival. This bottomland is full of whitetails, but the season will be over in two days; the hunter will be forced to change tactics or set his sights on another buck unless, by some miracle, he should get another chance at the old warrior buck.

The magpies chatter to one another on an overhanging branch, talking in a language only they understand. The sound of the river flowing by only fifty feet away is soothing to the deer bedded here; she slowly rises from her bed, stretches, and tests the wind for scents floating by on the afternoon breeze. All the scents she encounters are common to her and none raise alarm. She calls softly to her two fawns concealed in the underbrush, and they answer with a nearly silent mewing sound and join her on the trail leading from the thicket to the alfalfa field where all the deer will be feeding this evening. Following her and her family are two adolescent bucks, both sporting forked horn antlers and the bravado of youth. They spar repeatedly with each other on the trail to the field, and the clicking of their antlers echoes off the canyon walls on the opposite side of the river.

Within a half hour forty deer have walked along this trail and, from this elevated position, the hunter is nearly invisible. Deer have been streaming by at forty yards for the last half hour or so; first a doe and two fawns, followed by a pair of unruly two-year-old bucks. One four-point buck had been very tempting for a longbow shot, but on this hunt the hunter had decided on an older buck or nothing. He had already harvested a nice bull elk this season and he had decided to hold out for one of two bucks seen in the area with hopes of harvesting two pope and young animals in the same year. From this tree stand and along this trail, the hunter is certain that eventually a good buck will come by; this particular trail is forty yards away from the main trail and very secluded. Few deer have been using this route, but the dried velvet he found rubbed on a tree ten yards from here make him almost certain a good buck will come by eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later, for tomorrow is the last day of bow season.

A large grasshopper launches himself off a clump of tall grass, landing with a small splash on the surface of the river; he may not have a large brain, but instinct tells him he has made a grave mistake. He swims with all his strength, trying to cover the distance of three feet back to the safety of the grass. Today is not his day. The brown trout sees the hopper frantically trying to swim for safety; he knows the hopper won’t make it. Since the beginning of creation the brown trout has been the shark of these waters. Very rarely does any prey item escape his toothy attacks. Today is no exception. With lightening speed he launches himself out from under his rock, gaining speed and momentum as he advances on his victim. With perfect timing and deadly accuracy, he strikes the hopper, swallowing it whole, and leaving the water in a graceful arc before slamming back into the river with a loud splash.

The buck stops mid stride; not a muscle moves as he scans the water. The loud splash startled him to the core, for after all these days of hiding he is still on edge. Today his hunger and thirst in the late afternoon have won over his fear and, since he hasn’t seen or smelled the hunter lately, he drinks deeply of the clear water, never taking his eyes off his surroundings. When his thirst is quenched the buck slowly crosses the river heading for a bite of alfalfa.

The afternoon shadows have reached their final destination and late evening is settling on the land. The hunter sits quietly in the tree stand, thinking of all the beauty he has witnessed this day; from the sound of the splashing on the surface of the river, maybe he should have brought his fishing rod instead of his bow. This is the last hour of the last day of bow season; it has been a good season. Spending time in the wild is always a spiritual experience and each moment a gift to be treasured. A long eared owl calls from the other side of the river and suddenly the hunter sees movement coming up the trail and it takes only a glance to tell this is a mature buck. As the deer approaches, the hunter readies for the shot; at five yards he silently draws.

The trail he walks down is familiar to this deer, for not long ago he had rubbed and polished his then velvet-covered antlers on a nearby tree. The cooling air is a comfort after the day’s heat, and as he cautiously works his way towards the alfalfa fields he becomes instantly aware of something in the trail ahead of him. Not ten feet away an old rival stands scanning the surrounding brush. During this time of year they are docile toward each other, but for the last few years during the rut, the older buck walking ahead of him has been his adversary. Although the warrior buck is younger by two years and sports more headgear, last year they locked antlers over a receptive doe, and the fight left them both limping away from the battlefield. He watches as the buck in front of him moves down the trail and seeing that his old nemesis is showing no sign of danger, he begins to advance.

Suddenly he hears a swishing sound, quickly followed by a sickening thud; the older buck staggers and runs back toward him. Seeing the panic in the buck’s eyes and catching the faint smell of blood on the wind, he tucks his tail and retreats silently into the thicket. As he disappears, he gets a whiff of something on the wind: the hunter from the shadows the other day. He hears the final footsteps of his old adversary as he swims back across the river to safety with his senses on high alert.

The hunter says a thankful prayer to the Great Spirit for a wonderful hunt and a good clean kill. The buck was broadside at five yards when he released his cedar arrow and ran back down the trail the way he came, expiring at only forty yards. The hunter begins the mile-long drag back to the truck with his hard-earned trophy; while tagging and field dressing the buck, he can’t help but wonder where, on this cool evening, is that wide-racked warrior from earlier in the season? Probably still across the river and only moving at night.