Young hunter has banner day with big turkey, big buck
Roy Munce of Eighty Four poses with his 8-point buck, taken the same day he also bagged a turkey in the morning.
Roy Munce of Eighty Four poses with a turkey he shot in the morning on the same day he later shot an 8-point buck during archery season.
Young hunters represent the future of the sport and I enjoy talking to them whenever possible.
So I was joking around with a young man when I told him he should have played the lottery the other day. He would have been rich.
Actually, what I told him wasn’t entirely a joke. When things are going your way, it sometimes seems nothing you do is wrong.
So it was for young Roy Munce of Eighty Four, he was telling me of his day in the field and very few outdoorsmen could or would repeat Roy’s great adventure.
Roy grabbed his scattergun and went turkey hunting. Roy had one thing going for him and that was very important to any hunt. He knew the landscape he was hunting and he knew it well.
Of course, most hunters know that while the spring turkey season is a time to hide well and imitate a hen with a call, the fall is not a calling season. The turkeys are not mating in the fall and will only answer a call when the flock is broken up.
Like most of us, Roy just went to a likely location hid well, sat and waited.
It wasn’t long until a bachelor group showed up and Roy picked a big one and had Thanksgiving dinner. The bird was a big one with an 11-inch beard, and Roy was all smiles the rest of the morning.
By afternoon, he was restless and went to the local woods again only this time he was carrying his bow. It wasn’t a long walk from home and soon he was 25 feet up in a tree.
That’s too high for an old-timer like myself, but remember, Roy is still a healthy young man.
A small buck passed his stand but it wasn’t what he wanted and he was still feeling good about his earlier turkey hunt. He passed the chance of a shot.
It wasn’t long before one of the largest bucks he had ever seen came his way. It was obvious the big 8-point was looking for a girlfriend and wasn’t paying attention to the strange creature high above it perched in a tree.
As you guessed by now, Roy stuck it with an arrow from his compound bow. Unable to find the buck immediately, Roy went to his girlfriend’s house to get help. He recruited her father, and together they found the buck as it only travelled about 50 yards from where it had been hit.
That’s when I entered the picture, Roy wanted to know what I thought it might score, so I put a tape on it and came up with some numbers.
As an official scorer, I can’t score a buck before it is dead 60 days so my score would be nothing but what I call a green score.
Since Roy is a friend, I did a green score and came up with a rough score of 135 Pope & Young. That is big for an 8 point.
The inside spread of the main beams was over 21 inches, and the outside length of the main beam was 26 inches. Those are numbers I usually only see from bucks taken in the midwest.
This was Roy’s first buck taken with a bow.
I don’t think I have ever had such a day. and now you understand why I told him he should have played the lottery – a big turkey in the morning and a big buck in the afternoon. I told him that it was too bad bear season doesn’t begin until next week.
That’s where I hope to be next weekend, in the mountains looking for a black bear with a group that took five on the first day last year.
I’ll go hunting with a group from the Scenery Hill area: Mike Weber, John Matco, Buffalo Bill and Eric Hainer. They bring home bear every year. If they had a motto and secret it would be think thick. The thicker the cover the better.
George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.