“There was about 1/8-inch of snow on the ground. Since the rut was in full go, it was a good sign of things to come. With the early morning temperature around 30 degrees, the two hunters were pumped up for the morning hunt. “With the cold and snow, you know, we were both excited. It was the coolest morning with the snow.” The anticipation was also influenced even more knowing that the majority of the opening weekend crowd would be back at work.

They arrived at their hunting area and Clifton dropped Greg off in the pre-dawn darkness. “It was about 6:45 a.m., when I gathered my gear and began the walk to my stand,” he remembered. It didn’t take him long into his journey to discover two fresh scrapes along the soybean field edge that he was walking. “You could tell they were fresh because the snow wasn’t covering them. They had to have been made at some point during the night.”

Hopper then pulled out his drag rag that he’d been using during archery season and doctored it up with some Mrs. Doe Pee’s Fresh Doe in Estrus and Blended Estrus urine. After dragging the rag across the scrapes, he headed to his stand. The special urine had worked during archery season, although he never got a shot at the buck he wanted. At one time, he had a buck actually make a scrape in response to his use of the authentic doe-in-estrus urine.

When he arrived at his stand, he put out some more deer urine on four scent tabs around his stand area. After his careful preparation, he climbed into the stand and was situated at 7:15 a.m. He was posted inside the woods edge a bit and had a great look at the area, including the open soybean field. The early morning was uneventful for him, but the fresh snow cover made the morning very interesting. Then, at about 7:45 a.m., he noticed a lone deer near the edge of the bean field.

“So, I grabbed my binoculars, noticed a tall rack and thought, That’s a nice one! The buck comes a little closer and I don’t look at him again with the binoculars. At that point, I don’t realize it’s the same deer. He’s 200 yards to the field line coming down the field. The buck then arrived at a spot where Hopper had walked with his drag rag. “I lose visual contact with the buck because he positioned himself behind a large tree. The buck just stands there. He stands there for the longest time in the field.”

Finally, the buck entered the woods very near to where Hopper is waiting. “He starts coming into the woods. He’s angling to a spot and I know he was going to offer a shot,” he recalled.

Hopper wasted no time and pulled off his gloves, stood up in the stand, and readied for the shot. The buck is still quite a distance away, but the hunter is fully confident in his shooting skills. His J.C. Higgins pump-action shotgun was shouldered and ready. When the buck entered a small opening at between 125 to 150 yards, he steadied the gun, aimed high over its back, and fired a shot.

At the report, the buck jumped and did a mule kick with his hind legs, which left little doubt as to the outcome of the shot. The buck took off running in the same direction that he originally was traveling and then suddenly turned and headed back toward the hunter. Hopper pumped another slug into the chamber, but he didn’t need to shoot again. The buck moved about 10 more feet before falling to the ground.

After Greg Hopper realized the buck is down, he called his brother but didn’t get an answer. He waited for a while in his stand before getting down. He wanted to make sure the buck was down for good before approaching him. Hopper finally descended from the stand and approached the dead buck. “That’s when I realized it was the drop-tined buck,” he explained. Now, Hopper was becoming pretty excited and tried to call Clifton again, but he still didn’t get an answer. “I just wanted to call someone to tell them, so I call my friend, Chris McDonald, to tell him I’d gotten a big one.”