«Return to Main Page

Tim Herald

Lightning Can Strike Twice

...13 pointer slipped in to 85 yards, and he now resides on a prominent wall in my office. I planned a return trip to hunt with Barry Samson and company for this October, and the regulations had changes, so I took my trusty .300 Win ICON.

Upon arrival my ICON was shooting true, so I headed to the stand. The first day, I saw plenty of does and a few small bucks, but nothing of note. The second day I saw a few deer early, and about 10 AM, the weather got nasty. It was low to mid-30’s, and rain began to fall. That rain became sleet, then changed briefly to snow, then back to a pouring rain. I was able to stay fairly dry as I was 20 feet up in a big spruce that acted like an umbrella. The nasty weather seemed to stop the deer movement, that is until noon…

At exactly noon, my cameraman David sager was getting his lunch out of his backpack, when I caught movement about 120 yards in front and to my right. I threw up my binos, and I saw antlers emerging from the spruce. I told David to get on the camera, and about then, a nice buck stepped out.

I reached for my gun, and during that time, the buck acted a bit spooked and dashed ahead about 30 yards. He stopped in an opening quartering hard away, and I could see one side of his antlers. He looked to have a typical 5 point side with a split G-2. I could see good tines and mass, so I decided he was a shooter.

He was facing straight away by then, and I waited as patiently as possible for him to turn and offer me a quality shot. Finally he turned and I sent a 180 grain E-Tip through his shoulder via my trusty ICON. The bruiser buck went about 20 yards into some 8 foot high brush, and he was done.

When I walked up to him, I could see that the side of his antlers I had seen was indeed very nice with a big split on his G-2. When I lifted his head, I almost went into shock. The other antler had points going everywhere. The Saskatchewan monster had 6 points on one side and 9 on the other (with 2 more small kickers I didn’t count). He stretched the tape to 174 4/8”, and has more character than any deer I have ever harvested.

 Not only did I take two monster whitetails, two Octobers in a row with Safari River, but I took them from the exact same treestand! Lightening really can strike twice…