Always take the bow... Last year a buddy shot a doe. Hit her bad and needed help tracking. I met him back at the cabin and changed clothes into jeans and a hoodie. He asked, are you going to take your bow.. Nah, look how i'm dressed and we'll be making all that noise tracking.... He replied "stranger things have happened"..
We got to the top of the hill and i lost blood. While we were looking he ended up on a small finger ridge not 100 yards to my right.. I'm looking on the ground and out of the top of my vision i see a deer run not 10 feet in front of me.. I look up and it runs and stops not 30 yards then runs off. As i'm turning to look my buddies direction I yell "HEY MIKE, You believe thiiiiii" It was then i saw a buck not 30 yards behind me.. About a 130 class 10, broadside, and standing there eyes locked on a doe not 5 feet to his front. She was looking at me. I must have stopped her run when i yelled "hey mike" The buck walks up and starts to lay his horns on the top of her rump,,. I did the only thing i could do.. I threw my beer at him.. She bolts with him in tow.... He pushed that doe up over the ridge right between us.
So now when someone says anything in the cabin about hunting this way or that, the catch phrase is "Stranger things have happened, Ain't that right Joe.." LOL