In this installment of “The Season” D&DH contributor Les Davenport checks in from Illinois. In the span of just a few days, Davenport has already experienced the highs and lows of a monster season.

“On Oct. 3, I blew a perfect opportunity on a 170-inch non-typical at 18 yards,” Davenport reports. “I shot a strand of baling wire holding down a licking limb over a mock scrape. It’s been there several years and I simply was so focused on the shot that I forgot about the wire. I almost cried!

“The next afternoon, with about a half hour left, it was raining and it started to lightning and thunder. I was about to crawl down and had not yet seen a deer. I looked over in the neighbor’s cow pasture and saw a 2-year-old running back and forth, race-horsing. I stayed after watching that, thinking maybe a buck would come down my headed for the pasture. Bingo!

“This 10-pointer came down 5 minutes later. He was goosey from the swirling wind and thunder, but I shot him exactly where the non-typical had come through (I had taken down the stinking wire.)

“The four-blade muzzy went through the shoulder and cut the front of both lungs. The leg was back and I think he might have ducked at the twang, or the results might have been different. He went 100 yards.