He seldom ventures out of hiding during daylight hours. Beds down most the day in the snow under a hemlock in the old growth hardwoods of neighbor Jim. I imagine he gets up once and a while to stretch his legs and nibble on any nearby soft woody vegetation. While I write this column, snow is coming down an inch an hour. Again, I envision him in my mind, curled up like a dog under the pines waiting out the storm.

When the snow stops and the sun goes down, the majestic whitetail buck will rise and shake the snow off his back. There he’ll stand, motionless for 10 minutes, surveying his domain. When satisfied there’s nothing amiss, he’ll walk slowly west, following a string of female deer on their way to my food plot, 300 yards away from the bedding area. But before joining his harem in the open, he’ll stand on the edge of the woods – just to make sure they are all alone.

He’s a survivor. No one in the neighborhood saw him during gun season. And no one tagged him bow hunting.

I know this, because I watched that group of deer the other night through a window and a spotting scope in my kennel office. The window faces the food plot, 250 yards to the east. I saw snow fly as the large buck scraped for turnips. He took my breath away when he raised his huge rack out of the vegetation.

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