Monte Nichols, a 31-year-old salesman, entered the
woods on a Friday evening unaware of the situation that was about to
unfold. Nichols was hunting in an area that had a series of scrapes in
hopes of arrowing his first buck with a bow. Monty knew that there was
a good buck in the general area because of earlier sightings by friends
and locals.
"I was thinking of having a cigarette when I heard
a twig snap off to the side of me. When I looked over in the direction
of the noise, the buck of my dreams was standing in the scrape, looking
at me!" Nichols said.
He first reaction was to go for his bow, which was
hanging on a limb on the other side of him, but resisted the temptation
for fear he would spook the giant buck.
"It seemed like the stare-off took hours," he said,
when in reality it took seconds before the buck turned his head.
Nichols slowly picked up his bow and drew it back
in one fluid motion while the buck faced the opposite direction.
Suddenly, the arrow flipped off the rest and made a loud clink! The
buck spun around at the sound, giving Nichols a broadside shot at 20
yards.
"I wasn't really shaking until then I knew that the
buck was at full alert and I tried to get the shot off," Monty
recalled. The buck then turned its head away one more time and Nichols
came to full draw.
Knowing it was now or never, he rested his 25-yard
pin behind the bucks shoulder. Nichols' arrow found its mark and the
buck dropped after a short run. The deer weighed 245 pounds
field-dressed and had an inside spread of 23 1/2 inches. After the
60-day required drying period, the buck scored 206 6/8 non-typical,
making it the Wisconsin new No. 6 all time with bow.
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