Saturday - September 26, 2020:
2020 Open’n’Day Whitetail Deer Harvest
Yesterday, during the late part of the afternoon, I went and hung my Lone Wolf Alpha II tree stand with five LW sticks into a tree where I was fairly confident I was going to see at least one of the two targeted Does this morning. I completed hanging my tree-stand roughly around 4:00 p.m., then after that, I pulled the SD cards out of my TCs that are located near the bait station.
According to yesterday morning’s TC intel capture, I discovered that there were over fifteen antlerless deer feeding at the bait station and/or fighting over the corn pile from about 5:00 a.m. thru 10:30 a.m., at least half of them were adult does.
Last night, I did my final pre-deer season opener ritual preparations before hitting the sack, such as charged my TactaCam camera
(although, I forget to check the camera date & time), installed the TactaCam camera bow holder onto my Mathews ‘NoCam’ compound bow, installed three brand new Muzzy hybrid mechanical broadheads onto three different arrows, inserted brand new Lumenoks into the end of all five of my quivered arrows, placed those five newly broad-headed arrows into my bow quiver by order of which I intend to use them throughout the season. Three 100g Muzzys – 1,2 & 3, one 100g Rage – 4, and one 125g NAP Thunderhead as my number 5 anchor. Then I attached a brand new Monkey-tail string silencer onto the bow string, bees-waxed the entire bow string, placed brand new batteries into my rheostat ‘Blue-Burst-Lights’ for the HHA three pin bow sight & dial, retorqued all Allen screws on the bow, doublecheck everything I wanted to take with me inside of my hunting pack, laid out what hunting clothes I wanted to wear and hung them up in my hunting closet.
Then I went straight to bed afterwards, which was somewhere around 10:30 p.m., of course right after I set the alarm clock for 3:15 a.m. because I knew I had to get to my tree much earlier than normal based on TC intel of those hungry deer the day before. I think I got settled in a little after 5:30 a.m.
Anyways, sure enough, just like clockwork, I hear the early morning deer coming, showing up all around me, exceedingly early still actually in the morning hours, in the dark, approximately 6:00 a.m.
No doubt, I could hear them all around me, including the ones right in front of me already at the feeder area munching down corn. I could not see them, but I certainly could hear them crunching on the corn, gobbling it down like there was no tomorrow.
So, I waited patiently for some sort of daylight. When it was just light enough for me to see where I could make a well-placed shot onto one of the targeted Does of the group, at approximately 20 yards away, I went ahead and released. I was setup right above and behind her somewhat with a slight quartering away type of shot opportunity. I managed to place that arrow right into the upper midsection, well angled, down through both lungs and straight into the heart, obviously towards the front portion of her.
Of course, right after I let that arrow fly, her and all the other deer took off like lightening in all different directions. I watched the stuck Doe head South all by herself, right along the main creek bank with my lit ‘Lumenok’ just barely sticking out of her, and then I heard the crash a moment afterwards. She did not make it even 35 yards from the point of impact from what I would estimate.
Right after that, I pulled out my phone from within my hunting pack to confirm the time, which it stated 7:10 a.m.
Then I immediately started to pack everything up, lowered my bow to the ground, threw my hunting pack over my shoulders, climbed down off the tree, and casually walked straight back to my workshop without my stand, it still being left in the tree.
Once I got back to my workshop; the shop clock showed 7:25 a.m.
I then proceeded to put away all of my hunting gear back into my hunting closet, changed out of my hunting clothes and rehung those as well. Changed into some regular work clothes, sat down, poured a nice fresh hot cup of coffee, and signed into ‘TOO’ to catch up on all the missed posts from much earlier this morning.
After about 30 minutes of that, approximately 8:00 a.m., I set out to recovery the deer that I shot. I only took with me my cellphone, hunting license, deer tag, a pen, a pair of gutting gloves, my ‘Havalon’ knife and a pull rope, and that was it.
It took me all about two minutes to locate her once I reached the creek bottom. She left an easy blood trail to follow. She piled up right against the West creek bank and fell over on top of the stuck arrow, which broke in half inside of her. It appeared that when she crashed into the bank, the arrow broke. I use carbon fiber arrows and it happens when I don’t get a full pass through, which is very seldom.
I then drugged her away from the creek bank and towards the creek water, approximately 10 yards away, took a quick field photograph, posted it within the
LIVE from the stand 2020-21 thread, and immediately called the ‘Deer Check-in’ line. After successfully filling out my deer tag, I field dressed her.
Somehow, I managed to get her field dressed and dragged out of the creek bottom and all the way to my backyard without getting any blood on any part of my clothes or boots, which is darndest thing ever.
Asked the wife to take a deer harvest photograph of me with the deer just before I hung her up from the old cabin roof joist so I could skin her out and begin the processing because I certainly knew it was going to warm real quick.
During the next few hours or better, I cut, carved, cleaned, and packaged up all that wonderful fresh venison, placed all of it into vacuum sealed freezer lock baggies, and then I hauled it all to our deep freezer just before the real warmer temperatures started to settle in.
After all of that fun stuff, I finished cleaning everything else that I used to do the processing by hand washing all the tools
(bone saws), knives, metal bowels, meat grinder, vacuum sealer and the stainless steel cutting top table with our outside hot/cold filtered tap-water. Then I took whatever that needed to go through our dishwasher into the house, gave them to the wife and kindly asked her if she would take care of them for me, which she was happy to help out, thank goodness!
Trust me, by that time, I was drenched in sweat and freaking thirsty as all get out.
I just finished taking down Lone Wolf Alpha II tree-stand and right after this post, I intend to sharpen back up the Muzzy HB Ti Hybrid Broadhead that did its job honorably this morning.
Since the broadhead buried through the top of the deer and stopped at the bottom of the heart, I believe the broadhead is worth reusing again. I spun tested it, which it doesn't appear to be bent throughout. The very tip of it is just slightly bent from the initial rib bone impact, which can be filed down or straightened out, and one of the blades, if not both will need to be sharpened up just a little bit, then I do believe it’ll be just fine to reuse again. It’s the first time I’ve ever used this type/Muzzy brand of mechanical broadhead, and I have to say it held up well considering the large upper heavy rib bone it initially hit, which it did manage to brake cleanly and completely.
So, in conclusion, I DO NOT intend to do another deer hunt for approximately a week or two. I have way too many things I have to get done around my home and start prepping for the cooler winter months, along with the tons of leaf work I have ahead of me, acres of it actually, all kinds of leaves all over the place that I intend to get rid of.
I want to thank all those that have already commented kindly on my opening day deer season harvest success and I hope some of you will enjoy this more thorough back story behind it all.
Totally looking forward to my next deer hunting adventure for sure.
Thank you very much everyone, much appreciated!
Take care!
