warmer
Well-known member
Not a very good story teller but here goes. I had not been archery hunting until yesterday morning. EHD has been killing some deer around here and my cameras have not shown anything but really small bucks and does. Yesterday morning was my first day in the stand and saw nothing until a nice buck came from behind me on a dead run. He continued on thru our property and I lost him in the neighbors pasture. That was it, in a good year I'll see 10 -15 deer every time I'm in the stand, but he was the only deer I saw. I went back out yesterday afternoon, hoping he might come back thru, knowing the odds were slim to none that he would come back. I saw nothing but pheasants, until, with 10 minutes of light left, he comes heading right at my decoy across the harvested bean field. He came in to 22 yards and stood broadside. I sent an arrow at his vitals, boing/thump, he scampers 50 yards away, turns around and heads right back to me. An obvious miss. He comes in again, stands in the exact same spot, boing/crack, this arrow finds home, or so I think. He scampers off behind me, but I can see he's hurt. I can see my second arrow about 5 yards from where he was standing, so I know it's a pass thru. When my hands quit shaking, I send my wife a text telling her I'm gonna stay put for 30 minutes. After 20 minutes, I can't stand it any more and crawl down. Find both arrows, the pass thru has good blood and doesn't have gut smell. But not a single drop of blood where he was standing or the few steps I could see in the bean field. I made a loop and found blood in the field and appeared he was headed to some public land 1/4 mile away. I picked up my stuff and headed for the truck. There is a gravel road between our property and the public, so I figured I'd walk the road and find where he crossed. I found blood on the road, shined my light in the ditch, and up he jumped. Crashed thru the barb wire fence and headed into the public. I shut the light off and headed back to the truck, went home for supper and decided to give him some time. My wife, son and I headed back out and picked up the blood trail right where he busted thru the fence. We had very little blood to follow and gave up after 2 hours. I marked the spot of last blood and figured I'd return in the morning. My son and I headed out early this morning and picked up the trail. We followed the blood for about 5 yards, and my son looks up and says "Is that him?". Sure as heck, he was about 40 yards from where we stopped last night, laying in the grass! Turns out he had laid down in the ditch on both sides of the road and I bumped him twice. He traveled about 200 yards from where I shot him. I hit him back and took out his liver but also got guts.
So It was the shortest archery season I've had in the 15 years I've been bow hunting.
So It was the shortest archery season I've had in the 15 years I've been bow hunting.
