There was movement at the corner of the corn field. I lifted my binoculars and watched as a buck stepped into the shooting lane. The deer had very long spikes that resembled a gazelle. I found him in the viewfinder of the camera and shot several minutes of video footage of him. Eventually, he disappeared to my left at the far corner of the corn field.
This goes against what most hunters think about whitetails and the wind. The buck had entered the corn at the north east corner with a stiff wind coming directly out of the north, meaning he was quartering down wind as he traversed the corn field. I have watched this happen for years in many different places and it is pretty much how a deer uses the wind when feeding in fields. They will normally enter the field on the upwind side with the breeze at their back, trusting in their eyes and ears to detect anything that might be of danger in front of them. This does not hold true with deer that have been spooked, but for deer that are going about their daily routine.
When hunting big fields and food sources (the emphasis is on big) I have asked Wanda several times on evening hunts where the deer were going to show up first. Her answer is always "Duh! The wind is out of the south so they are going to come out of the south end and feed with the wind". Or "The wind is out of the north so they are going to show up on the north end of the field first". True to form a doe materialized on the north end of the corn field. As I watched her, I realized that she was in her hot mode, and no doubt there would be a buck somewhere on her back trail. As the sleek doe stood staring at the northeast corner of the field, I shifted my gaze in that direction. Antlers! The yellow antlers seemed to dance above the corn as the beautiful buck stepped into the bush hogged shooting lane. He had entered the corn at the same place as the long horned spike. The eight pointer had antlers a couple of inches wider than his ears on both sides, but it was obvious to me that he was a young buck. I picked up the camera to capture the deer on video.
I had killed a buck a couple of days earlier and my host David Jordening, owner of Two Rivers Hunting Club had said "TomCat, feel free to kill a doe, any bobcats, coyotes or wild hogs that you see. I would rather you kill a hog than a doe, but you can shoot a doe if you want." I slowly looked to my left to spot the doe again as she stood chewing on some of the bush hogged corn and staring at the high racked eight pointer that was on her trail. It was if she was saying "Come on now, I am not that hard to follow. Catch me if you can," as she headed for the southwest corner of the field. In a minute or two the buck disappeared at the same place in hot pursuit of the doe. I never picked up my rifle. 
There is just something magical about whitetails and the rut that runs deep in my soul. I simply had no desire to stop the primitive dance that was occurring. Actually, my thoughts were that eventually the doe would cross trails with one of the mega bucks that call Two Rivers home and possibly make them visible enough to be found by David Jordening or Duncan Dobie, Editor of North American Whitetail magazine who was filming an episode of North American Whitetail Television nearby.
Something big and black stepped into my shooting lane. A wild hog! I reached for my rifle as the boar disappeared into the corn. I waited for him to enter the next shooting lane, but when he did he was going straight away. As he was about to disappear into the next stand of corn he turned slightly. At the shot he went down hard, but I bolted in another round to make sure he was going to stay down. I watched the downed hog through the scope for a while, feeling confident that he was down for keeps. I sent Wanda a text message on my phone that I had just shot a big wild hog. I looked up and was shocked to find that the big porker had disappeared! I grabbed my rifle, flew down the steps of the box blind, checked to make sure ther
e was a fresh round in the chamber before heading down the edge of the corn.
My pal Larry Weishuhn calls the wild boar "The Poor Man's Grizzly" and I thought of that as I approached the place where the wounded hog disappeared. I took a deep breath as I realized that I was only a few seconds from encountering one of the most dangerous creatures on the continent...a wounded wild hog. I felt that I had somehow kicked the gates of hell open, and now I had to go through them.
Head high corn stalks were flying in every direction as the injured wild hog spun to face me. With high pitched squeals the two hundred pound mass of tusks, muscle, and bad attitude headed for me. Fortunately, the boar was hurt bad enough to not be able to make a full speed charge. I made a couple of quick jumps to the side and shot the hog again at less than fifteen feet. I stood shaking in the corn field under the cobalt sky that was painted with hot pink clouds that faded into gray as I watched steam rise from the bullet hole in the black skin of a poor man's grizzly, a wild boar. What a great day to be alive!
