Magilla Died Last Night
Magilla died last night at the hands of old Spit, with a little help from Tony Knight, Del Ramsey and Bushnell.
Steady light rain had turned a beautiful October afternoon into a sloppy nightmare. With daylight waning, a lone dark blob moved slowly in the distance. DEER! The 8x42"s told him it was a buck--and a NICE one! Was this just another wet dream? No one could sleep in weather like this, he told himself. The cold aching spasm in his back was now gone as adrenaline coursed through his veins. His wet trigger finger quivered with anticipation as old Spit peered into the twilight for the ever darkening figure of Magilla. The old Bushnell 3200 he had come to rely on for so long was about to hand him another Magilla on a platter. The steady hypnotic rhythm of the cold October rain was drowned out by the drumming inside his chest, sending the crosshairs into a spastic dance around the ever darkening figure. Steady Spit. Just a few steps more! Be patient! The distance was closing. In a few precious seconds he would bring closure to this final chapter of study, practice and patience. The months of practice, the MONEY he had spent, and the chidings from those that knew him-- would soon be but a fleeting memory eclipsed by the task at hand.
"Steady now Spit", he thought to himself as he mustered and regained his nerve. His finger now steady, he gently caressed the 2-1/2# trigger. He waited----209 yards and closing...Rain Guard is a wonderful thing, He thought. Passing the tree he had ranged earlier...150 yards! HIS ZERO!! The buck stopped. Alert, his ears rotating like radar, his nose testing the air! A straight on frontal shot... Should he take it? Would the 200 grain SST do the job? Would Del's blue sabot hold up to the pressure of the Triple Seven charge? Would Rifleman ever eat Ground Cherry pie?
As quick as he had stopped, Magilla bolted ever closer in a heated attempt to inspect two does that had innocently wondered into this picture-book scenario while heading to an adjacent bean field. They quickly ran off wanting nothing to do with him. It was not their time yet. He was a massive piece of meat--a real "Bone Head" a term Spit used to describe large racked deer to his kids. 60 yards and angling...50...40... Closer and closer he came. He stopped to work a scrape under the edge of a Large Hawthorne tree. As he rose to nibble on his licking branch his massive neck looked almost cartoonish, like some kind of comic book character.
His time was now, at what Spit would later range to be 32 yards, Magilla died from a broken heart...literally!
I was happy to harvest this fine animal at 32 Yards even though my dream was to take him at 150. Unlike many deer he will not be forgotten. His memory lives on to be a part of our lives. So it goes........Spit
