Cole couldn't hunt the area on opening day (last year falling on Nov. 10) of the early muzzleloader season west of the Blue Ridge, because his son, who attends Bridgewater College, was playing in a football game. On Monday morning, Nov. 12, the Buena Vista resident returned to this part of the national forest in Rockbridge County.

At 7:15, as the wind howled, Cole looked to his left and saw the same buck from the fortnight before. The broadbeam was moving parallel to the smokepoler at a distance of about 30 yards.

"I raised my muzzleloader, but there was something in my scope -- a blade of grass, dirt, something," remembered Cole. "I tried to pick out the deer, but I just couldn't. Then I took both my thumbs and tried to clean the scope, but I still couldn't get it right. Meanwhile, the buck was moving farther away and eventually headed into the laurel."

Cole pulled out a grunt tube and sounded off, but given the wind's force, the whitetail either did not hear the sound or ignored it. Then the Rockbridge County sportsman emitted as loud a grunt as he could -- and the buck turned and began walking toward the sound.

"The buck stopped about 35 yards away and actually looked toward me," Cole said. "But the laurel was so thick where the buck stopped that I hesitated shooting. Then I saw that I had an open shot at his neck, so I pulled the trigger and fired. The buck never flinched, never moved. In fact, he didn't even seem to know that he had been shot at. I was sick and assumed that my shot had hit a tree.

"I knew I couldn't reload without spooking the buck, so I just sat there for about 20 minutes. And the buck eventually walked up to where he was about 15 yards away before he finally left."

Cole hoped he would see the buck again, so he went back to the same area that afternoon but only viewed a spike and a 4-pointer. The next morning, on what would eventually become a day when the temperature soared into the 70s, the plumber returned to the same area and once again the time was 7:15.

"This time my tree stand was facing toward where I had seen the big buck come the day before," he said. "A doe pops over the ridge about 20 yards in front of me and walks directly under my stand and stops. At that time, I see this rack moving along behind a hill and knew it belonged to a really big buck. He took about four or five steps over the hill, and I shot him and he dropped. It was the same buck coming through at the same time as the day before."

John Cole's national forest 9-pointer scores 148 7/8.