I headed home to Northern Indiana to hunt my family farm this past weekend. I had shipped a stand, climbing sticks, and a trail camera for my dad and brother to hang for me back in August. For the past two weeks, the trail camera was getting pictures of a pretty good 9 that was feeding in the morning in a cut bean field. I could not hunt the stand Saturday due to wind direction, but Sunday morning had a perfect SE wind for this stand. At first light I see three deer come out of the swamp across the cut bean field and start working the fense line towards my stand. I could see right away that one of them was sporting good bone. At 50 yards, I see the three deer are a small 8, a big 9, and a small cow horned spike. The stand was located about 20 yards from a stand corn field and 15 yards from the cut bean field. I had figured the deer were going to head to the corn, which was going to give a great shot. Instead the deer headed north along the timber in the cut bean field. For whatever reason, my dad and brother did not clear a single shooting lane to the cut beans. I start scanning for any kind of hole to get an arrow thru, but I am not seeing anything I like. Finally and maybe out of desperation, I see what I think is good enough opening. The small 8 stepped in it first and I clear look at his vitals, there was a limb there, but I thought I could get an arrow over the top of the limb. I grunted when the big 9 stepped into that hole to stop him. He stopped right where I wanted him, I looked thru the peep and thought it looked good, knowing I was going to have to go on top of the limb. The shot was right at 25 yards, I placed the pin on his vitals and touched the release. The arrow caught just the top of the limb and sailed safely 4 feet over the back of the deer. None of the deer really knew what happened, jumped around a bit and started feeding again, later passing in front of me in the timber at 50 yards. I don't think I will be able to make it up there to hunt again this year, but when I got down I made sure to clear a shooting lane to the bean field just in case. The pictures were taken about two mintues before the shot. It would have been great to put him in the truck, but it was still a great hunt and sharing the woods with my dad and brother is always a blast. Sorry I got long winded.
Blew it Sunday with Pics
