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2010 - A Deer Odyssey

Jamie

Senior Member
5,691
177
Ohio
since Ric (finelyshedded) inquired about the buck I posted a picture of in the "show them to me" thread", I've been on a bit of a stroll down memory lane. I don't normally put stuff like this out there. My archery hunting pursuits are something I prefer to keep mostly to myself and my close friends. Not that there is much worth talking about, but whatever is, is not the kind of stuff I wish to share with the world. there is plenty of that taking up bandwidth already. The buck in question here was killed in 2010. 2010 was one probably the single best year of bowhunting whitetail deer that I've ever had. This is how it started, at the very end of the 2009-10 season.
On January 28, 2010 I managed to kill the single most elusive and annoying whitetail doe that I've ever encountered, and I say that with all due respect. Every time I saw this particular doe with her clueless button buck fawn, she busted me. She winded me, cut my trail on the ground, saw me, heard me, felt my presence with her sixth sense, got signals beamed from aliens, you name it, and she nailed me that way at least once. this deer nailed me at least 6 times in three different stands. Those are just the times I saw her and knew I had been made. Who knows how many times she avoided me without me even knowing? By the third time she nailed me I nicknamed her the "Sneaky Doe", and made it my mission to put her in my freezer and regain some of the diginity that she had repeatedly robbed me of. Like people, some deer are just plain smarter than others, and this was one smart deer. Extremely wary and alert, but never panicky; the artful dodger. She was just plain good at being a deer, and making a monkey out of me for the entirety of the the season.
I had been waiting several days for a coveted light, straight west wind to be able to hunt my best stand. The evening before, my friend and squirrel dog guru Dean Torges called me and asked me to come and squirrel hunt with him and his dogs. I politely declined, and made my case for wanting to climb into a treestand instead. He understood because he was bowhunter, too. Still, he had to jab me in the ribs by offering to bet me he would kill more squirrels than I would deer. I retorted that it was a lousy bet for me to take and he knew it. The odds of laying a whitetail low with stick bow in the last week of January are quite long. I declined to take that bet, regretfully.
Despite turning down a bad bet, I was confident in my plan. The sky was crystal clear, there was an inch of two of snow on the ground, and the air temperarature was right at 20 degrees. The forecasted light west wind held up. I snuck in there in the dark and got set up, hoping the deer moved in the first hour of light or so, before I started to get cold and stiffen up. Sometimes things just go the way you script it in your head. I was in the stand a little less than an hour when I spotted some movement. Two deer coming toward me on a well used trail that passes within 10 yards of my tree. As they got to within about 40 yards, coming at me head on, I saw who it was. I was on my feet, bow in hand. The wind was perfect, and they would have to walk past me and go 40 more yards before cutting my trail. I was hidden damn good in this stand from deer approaching from their direction as I had decorated the stand considerably with cut oak branches full of leaves, and I had shot several deer from this spot in the last few years, so I knew I could avoid detection if the wind held up. The button buck was leading the way, but they stopped about 20 yards out in front of me for a look down the trail, and I'll be damned if she did not look directly up at me for no good reason! I thought to myself, "well fuck, here we go again, lol." I was not moving, and in full camo in a good hiding spot. I really don't know if I fooled her or if she simply took pity on me and decided to offer herself for the taking. Her buck fawn was moving past me as her gaze went away from me and she started coming. When she was just past me, still nearly broadside, I shot her walking at a little less than 30 feet, and my arrow found its mark. A perfect double lung shot, tight to the shoulder. She bolted about 50 yards, staggered and fell over. After a brief instant of being very pleased with myself, I realized what I had just done. I don't usually get too choked up over dead animals, but this one was different. I had a very long moment of silence as I stood over the now lifeless body of a deer that had given me a very amusing season and a good dose of humility. I was sad that it was over, but the odds were always in her favor, and not by accident.
After I got her dressed and in the truck, I called Dean while I was driving home. When he answered the phone I asked "how many squirrels did you get?". He said "none, I slept in. how many deer did you get?" I said in as serious a tone as I could muster "just one". :) We had big laugh about that for many years after.

The Sneaky Doe
1-28-2010.jpg
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,691
177
Ohio
The 2010-11 season started like many before. I was hunting a great place in Licking county for the third season and a farm in Hocking county for my 32 year. The difference in deer numbers and trophy potential between these two places could not be any different. If I had to predict where I would get a chance at good buck, it would have been Licking county for sure. We’d seen a few good bucks over the years at the Fisher farm, but nothing like what I was seeing up Utica way. I did see a few shooter bucks at the Fishers during the last season, and came very close to killing a nice 3 ½ year old 4X4 that I grunted in. None of the good bucks I saw in 09-10 were killed as far as I knew, so I had high hopes for 2010. After over 30 years of hunting the same 300 acres, scouting was not really necessary beyond a quick look to find where the acorns were falling. We had pretty well narrowed the places where we could count on the wind and kill deer with our traditional bows to a handful, and we would put stands up in those places year in and year out. I have never used a trail timer or camera, so I had no idea this particular deer was around until I saw him for the first time, which was the first week of the season. I was set up at the head of a very steep ravine which has always been a good natural funnel. This particular buck was traveling in a way that we had not seen the deer moving though there for a several years. He smelled me that morning, but was too far away to find me. No matter, I had fucked that up and was in the wrong place. I had to make a move, and I didn’t waste any time doing it. I moved the stand that day. I wound up about 200 yards from my current position, back up on top of the ridge where the wind is never swirly in a giant pignut hickory tree right on the edge of the mowed top, which has been kept mowed for cows and tractors for the last 40 years. That tree had been dubbed “the nine point hickory” back in 1989 when my uncle and hunting companion rattled in and killed a dandy 3 ½ 4X4 with a 5” drop tine with his Assenheimer recurve. That was the best deer we had ever taken on this place. We had not had a stand in this particular tree for 8 or 10 years as the deer simply were not crossing through there after they took timber off of the place in 1999 (effectively ruining the deer hunting for the next 15 years) We had some awful lean years there, but we kept on trying. Well, I kept on trying because I did not have anyplace else to hunt besides public. My uncle, who I affectionately refer to as “The Goof” had a nice place in Delaware county to hunt, so he did that instead of suffering with me at the Fisher farm. I was excited to see deer coming through there again like they had done for so many years, and one of them was a big 10 point. I forced myself to stay out of there for a couple of weeks after I got smelled by the buck I was now hunting. I sat in that stand a morning and an evening, seeing a hand full of deer, and a couple of small bucks getting frisky and making scrapes. I knew I was in the best position I could be now, and I just had to be patient and hope for south or southwest winds so I could hunt it. On the morning of Saturday October 30, I slipped into this stand in the dark with a nice steady straight south wind. Perfect. Three hours later, after I did nothing but watch squirrels I caught some movement about 100 yards out. I put up the binos and it was the big ten point, just beebopping along like he owned the place. He was walking down a tractor path scent checking a bedding area. I scrambled to get my rattling horns off their hanger and banged them together violently for about 15 seconds while watching the buck disappear behind brush, apparently ignoring the fight going on in my hands. I waited until he was out of sight for about 30 seconds and started banging the horns together again for another 15 seconds. I put them up and grabbed my bow and got ready. I waited, and waited some more. After 20 minutes I decided to hang my bow up and take a seat. I had been standing for nearly 4 hours by then and it was getting to be time to think about climbing down. No sooner than I got my ass on the seat, I saw a deer coming up the hill from the north, which practically never happens. I got on my feet and reached for my bow. By the time I got ahold of it, the big ten had made his way up the hill, south wind in his face to investigate that commotion from earlier. By no coincidence, I’m on the spine of this ridge and my scent is blowing off into space high above the ravine that this buck had just circled through to get the wind in his favor. He was coming. I was a little surprised, but ready. He closed the distance to 30 yards and stood there broadside looking up the hill directly at my tree. It has always amazed me how well a deer can pinpoint a sound. He knew exactly where those other bucks were, but they we gone now, and he was not coming any closer. That is way too far of a shot for me to take with my home made bow and wood arrow, but a victory nonetheless. He didn’t bug out of the area after smelling me three weeks prior, and to the contrary was making his rounds in the middle of the day. No doubt, this is best buck in the neighborhood, and the best one we’d seen on the property since the late 90’s. This bodes well for me, and I knew it. This is a killable buck.
 

Jamie

Senior Member
5,691
177
Ohio
I was very excited for the possibility of getting a chance at him, and was really in the best position I could be. Easy in and out with this stand, a good hiding place with ample shooting all around, and minimal chance of getting smelled if the wind was correct. The wind was right again on Thursday November 4. The Goof and I met for a day hunt. I, of course, went to the nine point hickory and he hunted an oak flat on the other side of the property. An hour or better after legal shooting time an adult doe by herself fed her way through the briars coming toward me. She laid down in a thick patch about 60 yards away, but I could see her with the naked eye. There she laid for almost an hour when I caught movement 40 or 50 yards beyond her, where she had come from. The big ten trailed her to her bed where she quickly got up and started playing hard to get. She was walking toward me on a good trail that would bring her past me at about 10-12 yards. I knew this was it. When she got to within a little less than 40 yards of me, she took a hard right turn off of the trail and cut across the woods in front of me to the mowed hill top. The buck followed, and as he got close, he pushed her out into the open where she turned and started coming directly at me again out in the open on the mowed top. The buck stood on the edge of the mowed path 50 yards away in the briars watching her until she got right under me. She stopped, and he started to step out into the open to come after her, but hesitated. It was obvious to me that he did not want to be out in the open there. He deliberated and sniffed a little and decided to come after her. When he did, she moved past me and he was coming. He walked by me going a bit too fast for a shot, but stopped once he was about 10 yards past me. I had to turn and face the tree to shoot, but I have practiced drawing my bow to shoot there, so I knew I could do it. He was 14 steps away, quartering away slightly when the arrow hit him in the back middle of the ribs and buried to the nock. I have never seen a deer run that fast before or since. It was like he was shot out of a cannon, covering 150 yards or so in 5 or 6 seconds before he was out of my sight. I knew that I had killed him, but now we had to find him. He was headed to a very thick bedding area on the edge of an old strip mine, reclaimed in 1978, the year I started hunting there. Wasn’t the first time we’d tracked a dead deer into that jungle. I did my best to contain myself, playing the shot over and over in my head to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. After waiting the standard 30 minutes, I got down to look for a blood trail. I could see where he tore outta there off the mowed top down into the briars, but only a tiny bit of blood after 30 yards. He was going so fast that the absence of blood then didn’t bother me much. I decided to stop there and go get The Goof. As I backed out I found my arrow, minus the fletching. I liked what I saw on the arrow, but I opted to wait for help anyway. I shot him at about 9. I texted the Goof and told him what had happened and to meet me at the truck to get a bite to eat and discuss what to do. We decided to get on with it. I was quite sure about the shot I had made and that he was down. We took up the trail at about 11, looking for the rest of my arrow (which I never did find) and a blood trail. I had a pretty good idea of his path, but we were wading through thick briars the whole time. We found only scant pin drops of blood for the whole way to where I lost sight of him running. As we stood there looking around, pondering what to do next I saw something white about 30 yards up the hill and on the other side of an 8’ tall patch of greenbriars. My heart started racing as I raised my binos for a look. There he was, right where I hoped he would be. It was a big day for two yayhoos with stick bows and wooden arrows. Ironic that, in all the years we hunted there, 45 for him, 40 for me, we killed the two best deer we ever got on that farm from the same tree over 20 year apart and both deer died in the same thick edge of the old strip mine. The Goof has taken some lousy picture of me over the years, but he got it right with this one. I’m glad he was there to share that experience with me. Our efforts hunting there were always a team effort. Killing a deer there was always a win for both of us, no matter who shot it. After we took some pics, got him dressed and on to the deer cart The Goof says to me “I guess we’re gonna have to start calling it “the ten point hickory” now.” “No way” I said, “ that has always been and will forever be, the “the nine point hickory”.” And so it is. at the beginning of the 2017-18 season we were told we were no longer welcome to hunt there. It took us a both a while to get over it. We shared a lifetime of hunting memories there. We both killed our first deer there, I killed my first squirrel there at age 10. Nothing lasts forever. The "nine point hickory" did give up a nice adult doe to me in 2011, and the last deer I would take on the Fisher farm on Halloween night 2015.

The Goof November 1989
1989.jpg


me November 2010
11-4-10.JPG


the last deer given up to the nine point hickory
halloween doe.jpg
 
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Jamie

Senior Member
5,691
177
Ohio
Back in 2010 I did not have a squirrel dog yet, so I pretty much hunted deer with my bow for 4 months, although I did tag along squirrel hunting with my buddy Dean and his dogs in December and January a little for the last couple of years. This was the year that I really got hooked on squirrel hunting with dogs, probably because I spent so much time doing it. It got to the point where I was handling Deans dogs sometimes for him, and I loved it.

Since we were only ever allowed to kill one deer on the Fisher farm, I was concentrating on my spot closer to home. I still had two tags to fill, so I kept hunting pretty much everyday. I saw several nice bucks in Licking county over the next few weeks. On November 14 I shot this doe out of the same stand that I had killed the sneaky doe from. she was standing in almost the exact same place when I shot her, and ended with almost the exact same result.

11-14-2010.JPG


five days later, on the other side of the property I shot this doe at about 6 yards.

11-19-2010.jpg


That was pretty much the end of my deer hunting in 2010. was a great season for me. ahhh, the good old days. I can barely pull the bow I used that year today. :LOL: