I wasen't going to head out tonight because of the heat and chores around the house, but I needed to put up one more hang on stand and wanted it in place for next weekend, so I headed out. Got my stand up at 3:00 and sat in it for 15minutes. The trail by the stand was really torn up, but I had been making some noise and decided to go elsewhere.
I believe it was R.J. who posted the thread on what deer eat when. I remembered that it was bean time so I headed over to a small field which put me between the woods and two bean fields.
After all the work and hiking I was soaked so I stripped of the camo gear and sat in dry shirt and my face mask. I was on the ground so I thought it was okay if I dozed a bit
. When I opened my eyes I saw 4 deer (no antlers) coming along the field edge heading toward the beans. The lead doe got right out in front of me at 15-20 yards and stopped. I think she caught my scent. I wanted to take one of the smaller ones but they were too far back. I knew if I waited much longer I would get busted, so I let her fly.The doe toppled right over and I knew I hit spine or the far shoulder. After 20 minutes and the deer not going anywhere (and no movement for the last 5 minutes) I crept into the field to see if she was done. Well, her head was down, but then up she came and ran into the woods. I could see from the blood and how she was running that I hit lung and .......spine.
The blood trail became very light 20 yards into the woods. I was only finding one drop every 10 ft. I went very slow and almost on my hands and knees, but I eventually found her. I hate tracking at night but there were coyotes in the area and I didn't want to loose a poorly hit deer.
Chris4570 came to give me a hand with dressing and dragging. The drag was extremely far and exhausting. I would have been dragging until morning by myself. Thanks again Chris, I'll bring you over a tenderloin tomorow
. Lesson learned when shooting from the ground aim a bit lower. The shot was a little rushed because from the time I saw her until the shot was only about 10 seconds.
I took some photos and will post them once I get the film developed.
On a side note I saw a fresh scrape on the way in to the field. Bring on the rut!!! I still have one more tag.
