Jeff Reiss with the buck he shot on the anniversary of his father’s passing.
It was a startling realization.
Jeff Reiss was looking at the calendar, figuring out when to schedule vacation so that he could have time off during Pennsylvania’s firearms deer season. He saw that the first Saturday fell on Dec. 3.
On that date exactly one year earlier, his father, J. Richard Reiss, the man who mentored him into becoming a hunter, died at 88.
“As soon as I saw that I wrote on the calendar ‘a buck for dad,’” he said.
Amazingly, thanks to more than a few pieces falling into place, he indeed shot a buck then, and a pretty special one at that.
Reiss, who lives in North Versailles, traveled to Derry Township to hunt on a piece of property owned by a husband and wife team of friends. He had a spot in mind.
When he got there, though, the wife said she wasn’t feeling up to going out and told Reiss to take her stand instead.
That was piece one of the puzzle.
Then, walking into the woods at first light, he spotted several deer. The first few were yearlings. One, though, was a mature doe. Reiss raised his gun, took aim at her and was starting to pull the trigger when he stopped.
“I thought, you know, doe season just started. I’m going to wait,” Reiss said.
That was puzzle piece two.
He continued walking and finally took a stand. Not long after, he heard shooting, then saw a deer running toward him.
It was a buck, and appeared to be big enough to be legal. But he was going to let it pass. Reiss said he doesn’t shoot at running deer and this one was moving quickly through a patch of crabapples, headed toward another piece of ground that effectively serves as a sanctuary area.
Inexplicably, though, it stopped.
“He just put the brakes on for no apparent reason,” Reiss said.
That was piece number three.
Reiss shot the deer. It turned out to be a 10-point with an 18-inch spread.
That, too, had some significance. Reiss said his father only ever shot one big buck in his lifetime. It was a 10-point he killed near Ridgway. He left it with a taxidermist to be mounted, but when that man suddenly moved to Florida, the head disappeared with him.
Reiss was thinking of all that when he walked up to this year’s deer.
“When I looked at it, I just kind of fell down on my knees, looked up and said, ‘Dad, there’s your deer,’” Reiss said.
The buck is not the only big deer Reiss has shot, not even the biggest. It will always be his most memorable, however.
“It’s a beautiful buck. But it’s not about the deer. This one is in honor of my dad,” Reiss said.
“From now on, I can look at that date (of Dec. 3) as more than just the day my dad passed away.”
