Had a beautiful cool October 1st opening day. The morning was quiet, and not alot moving, save the squirrels that kept trying to run up to my stand.
The afternoon hunt began with a good sense of optimism. Never thought I'd be sending text messages from a tree stand on my blackberry, however.. My buddy let me know that he had just seen a bear, then a lone doe heading my way. I eventually saw her poking around, completely content and peaceful. Too small to harvest.
A few minutes later, around 5:30, a larger doe and fawn appeared from behind me. They too were under no stress, feeding, looking around, walking together. Tried to take a picture with my blackberry but it didn't turn out. I had a feeling that with two does, there could be a buck in the wings.
Sure enough, a minute later, mister shows himself. He was an average sized spike, and he was broadside, over my left shoulder and behind the tree. A terrible shot for a lefty. So I waited. I moved to the other side of the tree and rolled out and waited. 35 yards, and there he was in the crosshairs. A good enough size to harvest. The bolt flew out of the exocet and landed with a THUMP so loud, my friend heard it hit from his stand. The buck didn't jump, but took off at a very quick pace. I knew something wasn't right with it's reaction. I had been shooting the bow, and I knew I was hitting bang on.
45 minutes later, I went to recover the arrow. Bright red blood and some light coloured hair on the pass through. Not alot of bleeding near the impact site. I began to worry. My two friends arrived, and we began to track. Within yards, the trail lightened to drops. Darkness was quickly upon us. For those of you who have recommended coleman laterns - they really work!
What blood was there, really stood out.A few hours later, and still no sign of him. Drops were far apart and difficult to find. At one point, we heard crashing in the trees ahead of us. He was still kicking. More blood on the grass at that point. Then, nothing. We checked the card in the game camera that was located at a trailhead yards away, and he hadn't passed there. It was beyond dark and we were exhausted and frustrated -we agreed to resume early in the morning. It was cold, and we couldn't risk pushing him further in the dark. We had marked the blood trail well.
Early morning, first light, and we picked up where left off. We took the trail head to the right a few feet from where we had left off. Wet blood on the trail! The tip of the farmer's field had junipers in it. Lots of blood now!! A little to the left, and there he lay. Nothing had touched him, and rigor mortis had only set in. When I field dressed him, he was still a little warm. I've since received word from the butcher that the meat looks excellent.
Had I not recovered this deer, it would have been # 3 for me and I don't know if I would have dealt with that very well
. Listening to the advice about not pushing them, or trailing too soon is key. Not giving up, even though it's only 1 drop here or there is so important.What had happened here was a small deflection. The arrow entered behind the chest cavity on such an angle, it exited the other side, just behind the shoulder blade. It missed all the vitals
. Arrows do strange things sometimes, and it had to have been the tiniest of branches as the shooting lane was quite clear. He bled out internally, and I am sure it was a long night for him, which I don't feel good about. But it ended well, and there are good lessons learned here..The pictures aren't very good, and they aren't staged as I wanted to clean him and get him out of there ASAP. I apologize, the quality and composition are terrible - I took them with my blackberry
. But at least it's something...and you can see how lucky I was on the deflection. It entered so far back, and came out so close to the front shoulder, it's unreal. Again, thanks for all the advice. The knowledge contained on this forum, and the experience is incredible. Best of the season to everyone. I'm heading back out today.
