"It's gonna be cold. Be sure to take your Heater Body suit," I said as I dropped Wanda off at her stand on the edge of the big field. "I'm sure I won't see anything today. The deer just have not been using the field this year," my discouraged wife remarked as she dug her backpack and cold weather gear out of the truck. "You have the same chance to kill a deer on the last day of season as you had on the first day. Your stand is in a good place, and the deer have started to use the field a little more. Don't you remember the buck that was standing in the field yesterday when we came in? He should be back today," I said in an attempt to encourage my best friend and hunting companion.
Drought conditions across the region stimulated as heavy of a mast crop as I have ever seen this year. Most of us would reason that a drought-stressed tree would try to conserve itself and not produce acorns, but the specialists in the know say it works in reverse for the acorn bearing trees. When under duress, they bear a heavy crop of nuts. Well, there were a few places this year that had no acorns, but everyone else saw a tremendously bountiful mast crop that started falling early, and at this point the woods still have plenty of acorns available. This is good news for the deer, but it is seriously bad news for the deer hunters.
By the time the first weekend of bow season was over, we knew that we would have to make some serious adjustments to our hunting techniques, which were so successful last year. Actually, I had already begun to move stands like the "Mad Hatter". The deer were in the woods, and the fields were being used only when the deer decided to cross. Last year, by the early muzzleloader season, the deer were using the fields like it was late winter. Not a day went by without us seeing lots of deer, and an abundance of bucks. Being selective of what we shot helped us spend many more hours in the woods last year, making for one of the most enjoyable deer seasons ever, along with Wanda killing her biggest Arkansas buck, a 5 1/2 year old barrel-chested brute with a seriously rut swollen neck which gave him the appearance of a bull.
Two days into the muzzleloader hunt, Wanda was ready to call it quits. Her bow season so far had been unproductive, except for passing on some small deer. Now, the muzzleloader season was being unproductive. I took her to some thickly wooded areas that deer were using, and she informed me that she had rather wait until the deer changed patterns than to sit in the brush where she could not see more than twenty yards. I took her to the area where I had killed a buck with my muzzleloader, and we saw some small bucks, but Wanda would not shoot one of them. The same pattern followed during the first days of modern gun season. Wanda said, "I want a stand in that tree. Eventually, the deer will decide to cross this field and when they do, I will be ready." So, like a good husband, I spent an afternoon of my hunting time putting a stand up against the gigantic sweet gum tree on the creek bank at the edge of the field. Wanda came along to help with the stand placement, and it took both of us to finally get the heavy stand in place against the ancient black barked tree, but we both knew it was in the right location.
So, here we were on the last day of Arkansas' modern gun deer season. I had little aspirations of killing a deer, although I was packing my rifle. Actually, I was carrying my T/C Encore stuffed with a newly designed high tech muzzleloader bullet, and I would shoot a good buck if I had the opportunity, though I was not ready to call it quits on deer hunting just yet
What was left of the sun was sinking behind the western horizon when I heard Wanda's .243 break the evening silence. I immediately headed for Wanda's stand, but when I got close enough to see, she had not climbed yet down . I eased slowly to where I could see the field, I saw two deer standing in the tall grass near the middle, and one of them was a shooter. I looked the situation over before crawling through the grass to the pond bank. 
I rose slowly to look at the buck standing in the field when Wanda shot again. I instantly saw that the buck was hit hard, and watched him go down before reaching the fence on the other side of the field. I don't know when I have been happier to know that a buck was on the ground
As we walked across the field looking at the white belly of the fallen buck, Wanda said "I started not to shoot him because he is not as big as my two big ones last year, but it is the last day of the season. I wanted another big one, but he will do for my first one this year. We still have three days in December to gun hunt." The huntress had endured an unfruitful season, extremely cold, brutal winds, and had connected on her first whitetail of the season at a distance of over two hundred yards. By the time we had taken pictures it was dark and I could not help but to say "What a great day to be alive and well in the Ozarks!"
