Alright. It's been a long day but I like reading and telling these stories so I wanted to put something together here.
I've been hunting pretty much every chance I get since the opener. It's been slow so far and have only had a few deer encounters. Literally 3 deer so far this year that were close enough to shoot at. Once was a nice, big bodied 8 point with a double throat patch that I took pictures of, there was one doe and the third was this buck.
I've been completely ate up with deer hunting for the last 3 seasons. This year I set the personal goal of shooting one a little better than last year's and was prepared to be patient. I passed on the 8 with the cool throat patch because he was real close to the same size. I was proud of myself for being patient and taking his picture instead of shooting him. The problem is, I own a small business and I've really been slacking in getting any work done. I can't help but get wrapped up and pre-occupied with things I'm passionate about, it's just what I do.
Even knowing all that, I was still holding out for a good buck and had plenty of season left to get one. Until last night.
Work was a little rough, just a bunch of crap going on. Had a bad day so decided to go sit in the woods. I was planning on going to my tree stand but something came up and I didn't even get out of the office until almost 4. I still had my work clothes on but wanted to hunt so I decided to sit in the blind I set up for me and my daughter to hunt. The wind was good and I set it up on the other side of the creek with super easy access. Got in there undetected around 4:20.
I was hoping to see a doe, or maybe a shooter off in the distance but wasn't expecting much. It was warm, I was late, I smelled like a human and I was getting used to getting skunked. Around 5:00 I got serious, put the iphone away and started scanning the woods for movement. Within a minute or so I saw something white flicker in the distance. I adjusted the bipod my crossbow was sitting on and started watching, hoping the white flicker was a deer and hoping it would come closer.
I lost sight of it but started hearing leaves crunching and it didn't sound like a squirrel this time. The deer came up over a little hill and I could see it was a buck. At this point I'm still looking around for a doe because that's what I was expecting. I wasn't sure if this buck was big or not and wasn't sure where he was going. He paused and glanced around for a second and then started coming right towards my blind. He stopped at 25 yards and just started eating corn. I remember looking at him thinking he's kind of small. Light was starting to fade and it was about 5:15.
He was broadside with his right side facing me, just munching on corn. Then he took a step forward and stopped right in a shooting lane. His vitals were between two trees. He had his left leg forward and his right leg way back. He just stayed in that position for a good 10 seconds. At that moment, for whatever reason, I stopped thinking about anything and decided to shoot him. Since his right leg was back so far at an angle, I aimed just above his leg in what would be the top half of his lungs. Looked through the scope, focused, checked for branches, checked to make sure my arrow was high enough to miss the poles on the blind (I shot one once) and squeezed the trigger.
Those arrows move so fast I've never seen where one actually hit. There was a hollow sounding thud. The deer was in that weird position with his legs and his head was down, completely relaxed calm deer. He jumped up and about fell down trying to run away and went in the direction he was standing. He wasn't going very fast and he was stumbling. I kind of took a breath and looked around like "wtf did I just do?"lol
I was planning on waiting a half hour or so but it was getting dark and I was on a property I'm not real familiar with. I decided to take a chance and get out to see what I could find, quietly. I started off looking for the arrow and didn't see it right away. I went over to where I saw him go looking for blood and just walked about 20 yards and saw I was about to go on the neighbor's property. Shit. I haven't met the neighbors and really wasn't in the mood to go talk to them. I wasn't about to go shining flashlights on their property after dark without talking to them. Tough decision but I thought it best to come back in the morning.
Could hardly sleep last night thinking about this deer. Alarm went off and I jumped out of bed and got ready. I was sitting in the land owners driveway at 6:45 waiting for the sun to come up. As soon as it did, I went back and started looking for the arrow. I was pretty damn confident I hit that deer high in the lungs from his reaction to the shot and where I was aiming. I knew there may not be much blood at first and it had rained the night before so was worried it was washed away if there was any. I started walking around the shot site and trail and really didn't see anything. My biggest fear was wounding him and not recovering him. A guy from work was out there too and called my cell phone and said he found him. Turns out he ran on the neighbors property but then turned and went back towards where he came from. He actually fell about 100 yards in front of my blind on the property I was hunting.
When I walked up to where my guy from work was, I saw the rack and just laughed. This deer was way smaller than I thought. I was relieved he was dead and started looking for the entrance wound. It was right where I thought it would be and exactly where I aimed. He asked if I wanted my picture taken with him. I laughed and said yeah I guess I should. Snapped a couple pictures, tagged him, field dressed him and drug him out of the woods. I would not have found this deer easily last night if I tried. There was not a drop of blood anywhere, including on his fur. His lungs filled up with blood and he died.
I'm not trying to say I necessarily regret shooting this deer. I'm proud of the set I put together and proud of how well it worked. I'm proud of the shot I made on him and glad he didn't suffer. I'm thrilled with the freezer meat. Definitely relieved that this tag is filled because of all the stuff I have going on at work that I've been tempted to neglect so I could go shoot a big buck.
Here's where the story gets even better. The land owner that gave me permission to hunt here was absolutely thrilled to hear I shot a buck on his land and loved the pictures. He's not a hunter but is very interested in it and seems to be almost as fascinated with deer as we are here lol. He wanted to hear the whole story and I couldn't help but feel good about his reaction. He asked if he could have a copy of the picture. I said yes but he's going to get more than that. I decided to have a European mount done, mount it on a nice piece of wood and give it to the landowner as a gift. I'm sure he'll love it and I'm telling you I've never seen anyone this happy to have on of their deer killed. Guy was happier than I was lol
I'm also going to give him half the backstraps, a couple pounds of ground meat, 3 pounds of regular trail bologna and 3 pounds of bologna with pepper cheese. I'll have the pictures and memories, the little buck will be honored on the guy's wall and I may have a good new hunting spot for years to come. It really doesn't get much better than that so the mission of filling my buck tag was a complete success.
Thanks for following along and thanks to all the TOO brothers for everything you've taught me. I plan on spending the rest of this great deer season filling a couple antlerless tags, spending time in the woods talking to God, dragging my daughter along for the ride and hopefully getting her on a deer by the end of the season. Pressure is off, time to have some fun and I might even get some work done now.
I've been hunting pretty much every chance I get since the opener. It's been slow so far and have only had a few deer encounters. Literally 3 deer so far this year that were close enough to shoot at. Once was a nice, big bodied 8 point with a double throat patch that I took pictures of, there was one doe and the third was this buck.
I've been completely ate up with deer hunting for the last 3 seasons. This year I set the personal goal of shooting one a little better than last year's and was prepared to be patient. I passed on the 8 with the cool throat patch because he was real close to the same size. I was proud of myself for being patient and taking his picture instead of shooting him. The problem is, I own a small business and I've really been slacking in getting any work done. I can't help but get wrapped up and pre-occupied with things I'm passionate about, it's just what I do.
Even knowing all that, I was still holding out for a good buck and had plenty of season left to get one. Until last night.
Work was a little rough, just a bunch of crap going on. Had a bad day so decided to go sit in the woods. I was planning on going to my tree stand but something came up and I didn't even get out of the office until almost 4. I still had my work clothes on but wanted to hunt so I decided to sit in the blind I set up for me and my daughter to hunt. The wind was good and I set it up on the other side of the creek with super easy access. Got in there undetected around 4:20.
I was hoping to see a doe, or maybe a shooter off in the distance but wasn't expecting much. It was warm, I was late, I smelled like a human and I was getting used to getting skunked. Around 5:00 I got serious, put the iphone away and started scanning the woods for movement. Within a minute or so I saw something white flicker in the distance. I adjusted the bipod my crossbow was sitting on and started watching, hoping the white flicker was a deer and hoping it would come closer.
I lost sight of it but started hearing leaves crunching and it didn't sound like a squirrel this time. The deer came up over a little hill and I could see it was a buck. At this point I'm still looking around for a doe because that's what I was expecting. I wasn't sure if this buck was big or not and wasn't sure where he was going. He paused and glanced around for a second and then started coming right towards my blind. He stopped at 25 yards and just started eating corn. I remember looking at him thinking he's kind of small. Light was starting to fade and it was about 5:15.
He was broadside with his right side facing me, just munching on corn. Then he took a step forward and stopped right in a shooting lane. His vitals were between two trees. He had his left leg forward and his right leg way back. He just stayed in that position for a good 10 seconds. At that moment, for whatever reason, I stopped thinking about anything and decided to shoot him. Since his right leg was back so far at an angle, I aimed just above his leg in what would be the top half of his lungs. Looked through the scope, focused, checked for branches, checked to make sure my arrow was high enough to miss the poles on the blind (I shot one once) and squeezed the trigger.
Those arrows move so fast I've never seen where one actually hit. There was a hollow sounding thud. The deer was in that weird position with his legs and his head was down, completely relaxed calm deer. He jumped up and about fell down trying to run away and went in the direction he was standing. He wasn't going very fast and he was stumbling. I kind of took a breath and looked around like "wtf did I just do?"lol
I was planning on waiting a half hour or so but it was getting dark and I was on a property I'm not real familiar with. I decided to take a chance and get out to see what I could find, quietly. I started off looking for the arrow and didn't see it right away. I went over to where I saw him go looking for blood and just walked about 20 yards and saw I was about to go on the neighbor's property. Shit. I haven't met the neighbors and really wasn't in the mood to go talk to them. I wasn't about to go shining flashlights on their property after dark without talking to them. Tough decision but I thought it best to come back in the morning.
Could hardly sleep last night thinking about this deer. Alarm went off and I jumped out of bed and got ready. I was sitting in the land owners driveway at 6:45 waiting for the sun to come up. As soon as it did, I went back and started looking for the arrow. I was pretty damn confident I hit that deer high in the lungs from his reaction to the shot and where I was aiming. I knew there may not be much blood at first and it had rained the night before so was worried it was washed away if there was any. I started walking around the shot site and trail and really didn't see anything. My biggest fear was wounding him and not recovering him. A guy from work was out there too and called my cell phone and said he found him. Turns out he ran on the neighbors property but then turned and went back towards where he came from. He actually fell about 100 yards in front of my blind on the property I was hunting.
When I walked up to where my guy from work was, I saw the rack and just laughed. This deer was way smaller than I thought. I was relieved he was dead and started looking for the entrance wound. It was right where I thought it would be and exactly where I aimed. He asked if I wanted my picture taken with him. I laughed and said yeah I guess I should. Snapped a couple pictures, tagged him, field dressed him and drug him out of the woods. I would not have found this deer easily last night if I tried. There was not a drop of blood anywhere, including on his fur. His lungs filled up with blood and he died.
I'm not trying to say I necessarily regret shooting this deer. I'm proud of the set I put together and proud of how well it worked. I'm proud of the shot I made on him and glad he didn't suffer. I'm thrilled with the freezer meat. Definitely relieved that this tag is filled because of all the stuff I have going on at work that I've been tempted to neglect so I could go shoot a big buck.
Here's where the story gets even better. The land owner that gave me permission to hunt here was absolutely thrilled to hear I shot a buck on his land and loved the pictures. He's not a hunter but is very interested in it and seems to be almost as fascinated with deer as we are here lol. He wanted to hear the whole story and I couldn't help but feel good about his reaction. He asked if he could have a copy of the picture. I said yes but he's going to get more than that. I decided to have a European mount done, mount it on a nice piece of wood and give it to the landowner as a gift. I'm sure he'll love it and I'm telling you I've never seen anyone this happy to have on of their deer killed. Guy was happier than I was lol
I'm also going to give him half the backstraps, a couple pounds of ground meat, 3 pounds of regular trail bologna and 3 pounds of bologna with pepper cheese. I'll have the pictures and memories, the little buck will be honored on the guy's wall and I may have a good new hunting spot for years to come. It really doesn't get much better than that so the mission of filling my buck tag was a complete success.
Thanks for following along and thanks to all the TOO brothers for everything you've taught me. I plan on spending the rest of this great deer season filling a couple antlerless tags, spending time in the woods talking to God, dragging my daughter along for the ride and hopefully getting her on a deer by the end of the season. Pressure is off, time to have some fun and I might even get some work done now.
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