Been lurking here awhile. Great site and great hunts, soI thought I'd share myseason's hunt.
The deer had been moving well, so I tooka day off work on Wednesday and triedan old reliable stand in the timber. The weather and wind were ideal, but I only saw 3-4 does and it was getting to be late morning. I decided to try the new buck roar call I had picked up and called in a spike and a real nice mature six point. They both were intent on finding the source of the call and naturally were trying to get downwind of my location. They began to filter away, so I gave another roar sequence. They both turned back in my direction, and not a minute later, this nice mature 9 point came cruising over the hill. He was heading right toward me! I drew and prepared for him to pass 10 yards downhill from my stand. Just at that time, the 6 point grunted andthe big buck immediately stopped and turned to locate the 6. He bristled up and headed downhill the deer about 25 yardsout I waited for him to clear some small trees.I had to get down on my heels and make a quick shot before he went down after them, which I did and connected on himperfectly. He ran downhill and it sounded like he piled up about 50 yards from my stand. I waited 20 minutes and got down to check my arrow and as I did, anotherdeer blew at me from downhill. I was confident I had made a good shot, but didn't want to risk it so I backed out.
My brother-in-law was planning to meet up with me to hunt the rest of the day, soI waited for him to gocheck outthe buck. He arrived about an hour later and we followed a text-book blood trail right to the deer. Story over? Not just yet.
After seeing the buck, he tells me it looked just like the buck he had shot about a week and a half earlier. He had shot a nice buck which immediately fell over in front of him, but as he turned to hang up his bow, the buck hopped up and ran off to a nearby woody creek bottom. He, I, and a neighbor searched for the buck for the better part of that afternoon, but the meager blood trail thinned out to nothing and we came up empty handed. He checked further the next day but still nothing.From the amount of blood found, and the meaty looking arrow, we all agreed he must have jumped the string and the shot was high and had missed the vitals.
Well, upon inspection of my deer, it was found this was infact the same deer, and he had a well-healed pass through on his upper back to verify it. The arrow had passed just below the spine, and just above the lungs. He showed no signs I was fortunate to have another chance at him. Hewas aged at 4 1/2 years and will likely score 135-ish. Truly a seasonI won't soon forget! Anyway, great site and good luck to all this season.
Here's some pics (ignore the date, I thought I had it turned off, but reset it by mistake):
Here you can see the previous pass-through shot above my two-blade shot. In this pic the previous shot looks like it would be good, but the angle is deceiving. The previous hole on the other side is quite a bit higher than this side:
Iowa bowharvest buck
