Sweet Justice And A Monster Buck (pics)

This is a story of sweet justice. You see I'm from Illinois and I live in Georgia. I have hunted in GA but haven't had a whole lot of success in the past few years. When my Dad got cancer I decided that I would go home to hunt this year, but as I was making my plans my Dad called and said that the property that we have been hunting for the past 15 years isn't available to us anymore. It seems the neighbor that lives behind my parents has managed to weasel his way onto the property and at the same time get us banned. It is a shame because we took care of the land and like I said I grew up there, it is a part of my home and is right next to my parents lot. I went up in October to remove my stands from the property, but it seems that someone has been helping themselves to them and I could only find one of the two. I've hunted there 15 years and never had a thing go missing, till the new neighbors moved in that is. A buddy and I went up to hunt anyway and the night before deer season started we hastily stuck up a deer stand behind the house. It wasn't in a good spot, but did border the field that I used to hunt. I have had my deer stand in the same place down in a wooded bottom for years, great spot, deer highway, and I always killed deer there. But I didn't have a lot of options, so I put it on the edge of the field about 50 yards from my parents home and on my other neighbors lot. He doesn't care if I hunt there and he doesn't get along with the other neighbors either.

So Friday morning rolls around, I get up early, climb up in my stand and wait. I can see one of the other hunters from where I am sitting and I'm sure he was surprised to see me. About 9am, the other guy comes walking right through the middle of the field and confronts me about hunting where only they are allowed. I told him that I wasn't on that land which was technically true and he got mad and left. That is the short version. I actually saw quite a few deer out in the middle of the field all that day in range but I let them pass to respect the wishes of the land owner. It was hard, very hard, especially to see those jerks sitting in my spot and letting deer just pass me by, but I did. I hunted for 2 days in this fashion and near dark on Saturday one of those guys shot something. I don't know what it was but they were making an awful racket down in the woods trying to find it or get it out. I decided I would sit in my stand until I couldn't see anymore and just when I was about to get down I heard a crunch right down below my stand. There he was, a buck. Standing on the right side of the fence as it were. I couldn't see how big he was till after I had shot him. He had worked his way around those guys and was so focussed on them that he never even knew I was there. And that is how I got this beauty. A 17 point non typical buck. The deer was sweet, but the justice of it all was sweeter. I don't know what those guys shot, but it couldn't have been as awesome as this.

To answer metal's question I'm from southern Illinois and am only about an hour from St.Louis. There are very few Cubs fans in this area of the state and we don't associate ourselves with Chicago. Plus I lived in St. Louis for 5 years.
Flintlockjohn: I used a Remington 870 with a scoped rifled slug barrel. I was using Hornady's ballistic tipped slugs.
And yes I took it in for a full shoulder mount.

Yeah full shoulder. I have one in the man cave already that I killed when I was in college. Nice big 11 pointer. My parents are giving me the mount for Christmas so it isn't going to cut into my PAD or TAD.