Jake, first Adirondack buck

There was nice snow cover on the Saturday after Thanksgiving that year.  I was up on the back side of the east ridge, overlooking the valley below, where there was a stream.  I was seated in a cheap red folding camp chair that I had carried up there. 
 

The scenery was beautiful, and I sent up a short prayer, that I could just see a buck.  Just as I finished, I noted the large dark shape moving my way, maybe a mile away, down along the far bank of the stream. 
 

If it stayed on its path, it would get within 300 yards, where I would have a shot thru an opening in the trees.  I took my first shot seated with a good rest, but the buck never changed its pace and kept on walking downstream.  I’m guessing that bullet struck a branch. 
 

I got up from my chair and followed along up on the ridge.  When it got to another opening, I fired again, offhand.  That shot also missed, but he must have heard it and stopped.  I then rested my heavy 30/06 against a tree, and fired a third shot.
 

He vanished after that.  I noted a large pine tree down by the creek near where he had stood.  I left my red chair up on the ridge and made the long walk back to the gravel camp road where there was a bridge across the stream.  The stream was running high, preventing direct access across on a shorter route.  I had to walk over a mile to get to the spot where he had been standing when I shot. 
 

I followed the far bank a long way until I could see my red chair up on the ridge.   When I got to the pine tree, I found the stout 8-pointer laying dead under it in the snow. 
 

There was not a mark on his body, or even a drop of blood on the snow.  When I gutted him, I noted that the pointed 150 gr Federal classic had entered thru his second last rib and lodged inside the opposite side front upper leg.

I called my father in law, to bring his atv, but first I had a long difficult drag, to get him out of the swampy ground along the creek-bottom.

I named this buck  after our friend and real estate agent, who sold my in-laws their place up there, and who showed me the hot-spots to hunt and fish.  Unfortunately, he passed way too early, before I got the mount back the following summer.
 

He has a good home up there now though, up on the wall in my in-laws lake house: