A couple weeks ago I decided to get a crossbow for my son who is 8, soon to be 9 years old....he isn't quite strong enough to shoot the required 40lb limit on a compound and I figured this would be the best chance of him to do some deer hunting while the weather was still good. I bought him a Horton 125lb crossbow with a red dot site. After a couple nights shooting in the backyard, we were ready to go.
I had a 2 man ladder stand all set up prior to the season for us to sit in. After just one sit I decided we needed to be in a ground blind along the edge of the woods to have a chance at one of the 4 different bucks hanging around. I set up a ground blind in the perfect location to where I thought we would have some up close action....Now let me make it clear that I am not a ground blind fan, but when you have a young child they are almost imperative. The most important thing I did with this blind setup was to drape oak limbs and leaves over the entire blind along with leaning several branches up against the side of the blind, only leaving 3 corner windows exposed to shoot from.
So we head out to the blind Sunday afternoon after using my new SCENT SMOKER for the first time...(we fired it up in the garage and had smoke rolling everywhere, it was kind of cool)....just as we rounded the corner of the woods to head for the blind I looked to the east toward the blind which was 200 yards away and spotted a deer standing 10 yards or so to the north of the blind.....We ducked down in the weeds and watched this deer, which was a buck, until he walked back into the woods after eating some acorns. We approached the blind cautiously and when I got close I could tell the blind had been blown down by the strong winds from the previous 2 days. I set it back up as quietly as I could knowing that buck wasn't too far away. We got all settled into the blind and Dane brought along his nintendo DS. I watched for deer while he played baseball with the sound turned off. We didn't see anything for a long while, but I had an instinctive feeling that something would show up before dark.
I also want to mention that I told him about Cotty and his son getting his first buck and how they also had used the scent smoker for the first time....
It was just about 7pm and I was on high alert scanning southeast, south, and to the west expecting a buck to appear at any minute when I glanced out the west window and OH CRAP!.....there's a buck standing 10 yards away looking straight at the blind. I told Dane to hold still and not move...finally the buck started feeding and I slowly got down off my chair and onto my knees to get the crossbow and shooting sticks into position for him to make the shot. The buck would look at the blind every so often and then I would have to freeze in position so he wouldn't see me move through the little window.....finally Dane got into position and I handed him the bow and took off the safety. The buck had moved out just a little bit and was now quartering away at about 16 yards. I told him to aim behind the shoulder and to take his time.....the buck was very relaxed at this point and he was upwind of us too, so I can't give the smoker all the credit this time. He took aim and WHACK! The buck mule kicked and ran like a horse coming down the final stretch at the Kentucky derby...he ran a half circle in the weed field we were hunting over and we saw him disappear on the far west end of the field. We waited about 10 minutes and gathered up our stuff and snuck out of there and went home.
We came back an hour later with 2 good friends and some lights. It took us a while to find the initial blood, but once we did it was plentiful. We tracked the deer through the weed field and into a 10 acre woods....once he got into the woods there was a huge amount of blood...he was zigging and zagging and I expected him to be dead very soon....was I wrong on that guess. The deer ended up leaving the woods and going north out of there through a standing bean field and crossing a deep road ditch and the next road and into another standing bean field that is about 200 acres. By this time it was 10:30 and I had to take Dane home and get him to bed for school the next day. He was pretty upset that I made him stop tracking, but at this point I knew it was going to be a long night anyway.
I came back to the scene about 11:30 and continued the tracking job through the standing beans about another 400 yards until the blood became so little you couldn't find any. By this time it was 1:00 in the morning and I just decided to come back and look at daylight. I figured the deer was headed for a 5 acre woods in the middle of the section and he would probably be in there in the morning.
The next morning I pick my uncle up and we head out there to continue to look for the buck. My experience over the years has taught me this.....a deer will almost always bed on the downwind side of a woods, especially if he is wounded. So my gameplan was to walk the standing beans from the road toward the east end (downwind side) of the woods he was heading towards the night before. So we spread out about 20 yards apart and started the 1/2 mile walk to the woods. We were about 200 yards from the woods when all of the sudden the buck jumps up right in front of us about 15 yards and takes off like a bat out of hell! He runs straight north toward the east end of the little woods and then turned straight east on a field line and then ran another 200 yards when he eventually slowed down to a very slow walk....we just stood there and watched him the whole time and after about 5 minutes he laid down, but had his head up and was looking to the north.
We walked back to the truck and watched the deer through binoculars for a while and was trying to decide a way to do a sneak attack on him to finish him off....the biggest problem was there was absolutely no cover within 200 yards of this bedded buck and he was just jumped. We came up with the plan to give him a while to settle down and maybe he would go to sleep or something, allowing me to sneak within range to give him a finishing shot....Well, just as we are watching through the binoculars from 1/2 mile away the buck's head fell over to the left side and his body went right with it!!!!
I saw the deer's front leg kick a couple of times and then nothing. We decided it was time to sneak out there and see if we could get ahold of him and finish him off if needed. We walked out there and stopped every 100yds or so and looked at him through the bino's.....no movement. I got to within 50 yards and watched his chest cavity for breathing, again no movement. We walked up to the deer and his tounge was hanging out of his mouth....he was dead!
When we jumped him out of his bed the wound in the deer's neck started bleeding heavily again and I believe that is what finished him off. The buck was a young 8 pointer with an extra brow tine making him a 9 pt.
We drove out and loaded up the buck and put Dane's temp tag on it. On the way back to the house I called the school and told them to meet me in the principles office in 10 minutes. When I got there he was already waiting on me. He came outside and we surprised him with his first buck! He was very happy and I took a quick camera phone picture right then and sent him back to class.
We took a few more pictures after school...
I had a 2 man ladder stand all set up prior to the season for us to sit in. After just one sit I decided we needed to be in a ground blind along the edge of the woods to have a chance at one of the 4 different bucks hanging around. I set up a ground blind in the perfect location to where I thought we would have some up close action....Now let me make it clear that I am not a ground blind fan, but when you have a young child they are almost imperative. The most important thing I did with this blind setup was to drape oak limbs and leaves over the entire blind along with leaning several branches up against the side of the blind, only leaving 3 corner windows exposed to shoot from.
So we head out to the blind Sunday afternoon after using my new SCENT SMOKER for the first time...(we fired it up in the garage and had smoke rolling everywhere, it was kind of cool)....just as we rounded the corner of the woods to head for the blind I looked to the east toward the blind which was 200 yards away and spotted a deer standing 10 yards or so to the north of the blind.....We ducked down in the weeds and watched this deer, which was a buck, until he walked back into the woods after eating some acorns. We approached the blind cautiously and when I got close I could tell the blind had been blown down by the strong winds from the previous 2 days. I set it back up as quietly as I could knowing that buck wasn't too far away. We got all settled into the blind and Dane brought along his nintendo DS. I watched for deer while he played baseball with the sound turned off. We didn't see anything for a long while, but I had an instinctive feeling that something would show up before dark.
I also want to mention that I told him about Cotty and his son getting his first buck and how they also had used the scent smoker for the first time....
It was just about 7pm and I was on high alert scanning southeast, south, and to the west expecting a buck to appear at any minute when I glanced out the west window and OH CRAP!.....there's a buck standing 10 yards away looking straight at the blind. I told Dane to hold still and not move...finally the buck started feeding and I slowly got down off my chair and onto my knees to get the crossbow and shooting sticks into position for him to make the shot. The buck would look at the blind every so often and then I would have to freeze in position so he wouldn't see me move through the little window.....finally Dane got into position and I handed him the bow and took off the safety. The buck had moved out just a little bit and was now quartering away at about 16 yards. I told him to aim behind the shoulder and to take his time.....the buck was very relaxed at this point and he was upwind of us too, so I can't give the smoker all the credit this time. He took aim and WHACK! The buck mule kicked and ran like a horse coming down the final stretch at the Kentucky derby...he ran a half circle in the weed field we were hunting over and we saw him disappear on the far west end of the field. We waited about 10 minutes and gathered up our stuff and snuck out of there and went home.
We came back an hour later with 2 good friends and some lights. It took us a while to find the initial blood, but once we did it was plentiful. We tracked the deer through the weed field and into a 10 acre woods....once he got into the woods there was a huge amount of blood...he was zigging and zagging and I expected him to be dead very soon....was I wrong on that guess. The deer ended up leaving the woods and going north out of there through a standing bean field and crossing a deep road ditch and the next road and into another standing bean field that is about 200 acres. By this time it was 10:30 and I had to take Dane home and get him to bed for school the next day. He was pretty upset that I made him stop tracking, but at this point I knew it was going to be a long night anyway.
I came back to the scene about 11:30 and continued the tracking job through the standing beans about another 400 yards until the blood became so little you couldn't find any. By this time it was 1:00 in the morning and I just decided to come back and look at daylight. I figured the deer was headed for a 5 acre woods in the middle of the section and he would probably be in there in the morning.
The next morning I pick my uncle up and we head out there to continue to look for the buck. My experience over the years has taught me this.....a deer will almost always bed on the downwind side of a woods, especially if he is wounded. So my gameplan was to walk the standing beans from the road toward the east end (downwind side) of the woods he was heading towards the night before. So we spread out about 20 yards apart and started the 1/2 mile walk to the woods. We were about 200 yards from the woods when all of the sudden the buck jumps up right in front of us about 15 yards and takes off like a bat out of hell! He runs straight north toward the east end of the little woods and then turned straight east on a field line and then ran another 200 yards when he eventually slowed down to a very slow walk....we just stood there and watched him the whole time and after about 5 minutes he laid down, but had his head up and was looking to the north.
We walked back to the truck and watched the deer through binoculars for a while and was trying to decide a way to do a sneak attack on him to finish him off....the biggest problem was there was absolutely no cover within 200 yards of this bedded buck and he was just jumped. We came up with the plan to give him a while to settle down and maybe he would go to sleep or something, allowing me to sneak within range to give him a finishing shot....Well, just as we are watching through the binoculars from 1/2 mile away the buck's head fell over to the left side and his body went right with it!!!!
I saw the deer's front leg kick a couple of times and then nothing. We decided it was time to sneak out there and see if we could get ahold of him and finish him off if needed. We walked out there and stopped every 100yds or so and looked at him through the bino's.....no movement. I got to within 50 yards and watched his chest cavity for breathing, again no movement. We walked up to the deer and his tounge was hanging out of his mouth....he was dead!
When we jumped him out of his bed the wound in the deer's neck started bleeding heavily again and I believe that is what finished him off. The buck was a young 8 pointer with an extra brow tine making him a 9 pt.
We drove out and loaded up the buck and put Dane's temp tag on it. On the way back to the house I called the school and told them to meet me in the principles office in 10 minutes. When I got there he was already waiting on me. He came outside and we surprised him with his first buck! He was very happy and I took a quick camera phone picture right then and sent him back to class.
We took a few more pictures after school...
