“An hour passed pretty quickly, and about the time Jimmy was supposed to start walking, I heard two shots fired that came from the direction of the boys. We pushed the draw toward Mack and Billy, but failed to run anything their way. We did learn that Billy had two does within range, but missed both times.

“Having driven half the property, we decided to push the apple orchard next. I volunteered to walk, but Jimmy’s not much for sitting still and insisted on walking one more time. Afterwards, I’d take my turn while he rested.

“We posted Billy and Mack on both sides of the orchard and I swung around to cover the back door -- just in case any deer tried to slip back through. Since the whole family really likes eating venison, I’d pretty much made up my mind to take the first big doe I saw.

“I was in position by 9:00, and hadn’t been sitting long when two does came running up from my right side. They were small, so I passed on the opportunity. Not more than five minutes later, two more does came running from the same direction, and they were quite a bit bigger.

“I brought the Remington 1187 up and was just getting ready to shoot when I caught movement, again from the corner of my eye, maybe 50 yards away. It was a buck -- and he had the biggest set of horns I’ve ever seen.

“I’ll be honest: Just the sight of him made me nervous. I pulled up and shot once, but pretty sure I’d missed. There’s no doubt I had a bad case of buck fever. To this day I’m not sure whether I was aiming at his head -- or even looking down the barrel, for that matter.

“The deer turned and started back to my right, and I shot again. Although I thought I saw him flinch, he continued another 30 or 40 yards before stopping in a small grassy area. I shot two more times, and pretty sure they were clean misses, too. Instead of running, he stood there with his head hanging down. In the process of reloading, my mind was racing, and thought to myself, ‘This deer is going to get away if I don’t get my act together.’

“I made one step toward the deer and he decided to take off running, this time cutting straight in front of me at 50 yards. I pretty much knew it would be my last chance, so I beared down on the sight and aimed small for a spot behind the shoulder, and squeezed off. A tuft of hair exploded from behind the shoulder, and I knew instantly the shot was good.

“The buck continued another 30 feet or so and stopped in front of an apple tree. What happened next was really unbelievable: I stood there in awe watching as the buck walked up to the tree, lowered his head and began raking his antlers up and down. After making three or four swipes, he stopped for a second and then fell over sideways with his antlers hung up in the lower branches of the apple tree. Knowing that I had just shot the biggest darn deer of my life, I stood there motionless and speechless.

“I was snapped back to senses with gunshots being fired all around me,” Deaton went on. “It sounded like the boys were shooting, so I took off in their direction. When I arrived, I found out that the boys had shot two does. Mack asked, ‘How did you do?’ I said, ‘Well I just shot the biggest deer of my life,’ and pointed off in the direction of where it was lying. Let me tell you -- those boys were gone in no time flat!