How big do you think this deer is?
(dial-up tonight
) This is a pic of him as he was working a scrape at 40 yards--so much for my point and shoot camera.
So heres the story:
On Friday I got to the woods a little late, about 4:30 pm. I was hunting a ground blind. It is on top of a rock outcropping, at the base of a draw between alfalfa and corn fields. It is in a good funnel and does have a bedding area nearby. I hunted this stand as the wind was right and it was easy to get into late. I did a light rattling sequence about 5:30 and rattled in a doe, which was a first for me. The woods were calm; I was just relaxing, glad that I could be out in the woods on a beautiful day for once. I looked up to the edge of the picked corn field which is about 45 yards just upslope from my stand at 5:40 and saw a buck walking, angling from the right toward me at about 60 yards. I saw relatively short tines and thought "just a 2.5 year old 10 point, nice but not what I am after at the moment." I looked through the binos and the deer clear some brush and turned broadside. My heart jumped as I realized my mistake, his main beams went just about to his nose and that mass!! I grabbed my bow and gave a couple of doe bleats, followed by a couple tending grunts. I got no reaction but the deer continued angling toward me along the edge of the field. His neck was enormous, this was a dominant deer! He stopped at about 45 yards, looking around. He either could come through the funnel to me or continue up the draw. He started to shred a sapling right at the edge of the field, and then he made a scrape. I grunted a couple more times at him but still no response. Then I tried a snort-wheeze. That got his attention. He looked toward me ant let loose with a deep grunt. I couldn"™t respond, he was too close and would pinpoint me if I did a thing. He looked away and then I grunted, errrrpp, right back at him. His head whipped around and he grunted back, he was getting more agitated! Until this moment I wasn"™t sure I would get an opportunity"¦.now I knew I had him. He looked away once more, one more aggressive grunt on my part and he was coming down the slope right toward me!
While he was rubbing and scraping at the edge of the field (for about 15 minutes!), I decided he was a 140" basic ten with forked G2s. As he came closer, he got bigger!!!! At 20 yards I drew as he went behind a clump of basswood saplings. 15 yards! At 12 he started to walk to my left. My blind is made of maple and oak branches; he is leaving my shooting window! Errp, with my mouth. He freezes, his head swings toward me and I know in an instant he sees me on the rock. It is slow motion now; he moves ever so slightly, he will be gone in a second as he knows he has been duped. My pin is snug against his shoulder, he is ever so slightly quartering to. I don"™t remember the release, the fletching just appears on his side. Maybe 2" behind the shoulder. CraCK, My arrow centered a rib on the way in, I saw my fletchings jerk oddly and knew right away the arrow was deflecting back into his guts. He was gone up the draw in 3 seconds. I was stunned. I caught the near lung I knew, but those fletchings had been pointing at too much of an angle in his side to catch both"¦.Words really cannot describe my disappointment. The second deflection of ribs in as many years, in as many shots at big bucks! We will save that discussion for another day though.
Saturday morning three of us went back to the spot. It had been 15 hours since my shot at 6:00 pm. Light blood, find the front half of my arrow. Yep, guts. But the blood is still pinkish"¦I know I caught one lung. 120 yards into it my brother spots him. Talk about elation! Turns out he was dead within two minutes, but I would wait overnight again in a similar scenario again. You never know. My arrow centered the near lung, sliced the liver, centered the spleen, and lodged against his off-side femur, severing the femoral artery. A rib on this hog bodied brute (at least 4.5 yrs old) deflected my arrow back at least by 30 degrees.
He is a 10 point typical with two kickers"¦and I love his mass!
So here he is. Talk about an awesome hunt! I am STOKED.
I can never get the pics to post at 50 kb/sec, help! I know how to do it, just doesnt work for this[>:]
YES! Season over! (PICS ADDED)
