Gary, over at Base Camp Legends, stirred the memory bank for me this morning.  In his post today he talked about some wild cows that inhabit the area where they hunt, and actually coming to full draw on one before realizing what it was.  In his defense, he had to wait for it to clear some brush.  But, it still made for quite a story, and not only made me remember a hunt where Jeff put one heck of a stalk on an escaped cow, but also jarred a similar hunting memory of my own.

I had been hunting a fellow employees farm for quite a few years.  This farm really had some great potential, even though it contained only about 10 acres of real good hunting land.  The other areas were set aside for farming, and for some other animals that they raised, so hunting area was sacrificed for pasture.

Not wanting to let an opportunity pass, though, I still hunted the area for a few years in a row.  I even managed to cull a couple of deer off the farm for them – including my very first deer with a gun.

One morning, however, I hunkered down in my treestand an settled in for the morning’s hunt.  This property tended to be very hit or miss:  either you had all kinds of deer in front of you, or you saw none for days at a time.  Because of that I tended to have a lot of patience while hunting there.  Being the patient man that I am, I was settled in for the hunt, and just enjoying the time spent outdoors, when I heard the biggest crunch I had ever heard in my life.

I quickly stood up, grabbed my bow, and got ready.  I could hear this deer coming from a mile away, and from the sounds of the fallen trees breaking under its feet, I knew it had to be huge.  And better yet, it was coming right down the trail in front of me.  Perfect!

I sat perched, bow in hand, and waited for my entry into the Boone & Crockett club to step out.  There was only one problem.  My Boone & Crockett club Whitetail, was a miniature horse.

The farmers raised miniature horses, and apparently one of them had escaped from the pasture and made its way back to my stand.  I’m honestly not sure if he watched me walk in or not, but I definitely think he used his nose to find me.  They always fed the horses apples, and usually had a pile of them in the pasture, so on my way out to the stand I would walk through them; using them as a cover up scent.  Apparently ‘ole smarty pants decided to cross a broken part of the fence and track me to my tree.

Needless to say, my hunt for that morning was over.  I climbed down from the stand, coaxed him back up to the pasture, and let the owner know about the problem with his fence.

What a bummer.  If you could have only seen how excited I was when I first heard him crunching through the timber.  I did have my bow in hand, but thankfully, I never came to full draw.

It’s not a cow hunting story, but still a good one.  Maybe now we can get Jeff to tell the story of how he stalked a cow.

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