On Halloween, I decided to hunt one of my rut stands near a perennial scrape. The scrape had not showed yet but it is a high traffic area. To get ahead of the deer, I parked about a mile away and walked in without a light. I settled into my tree saddle about about 05:30 and took a little nap.
Nothing stirred until 08:00 when I hit my rattle bag for about 30 seconds. The noise seemed deafening in the crisp October air. Almost immediately, I heard a deer coming into my downwind side. I leaned backwards and could see a single set of legs about 15 feet from the base of my tree. The deer circled through the downwind scent stream but I believe he was too close to the base of the tree and the scent was blowing over him. As he neared my shooting lane, I shifted my stance and readied for the shot.
He stepped into the lane and I knew he was a shooter (for me). He was inside of 20 yds and I wasup about25 ft so I pulled the 20 yd pin low and released. The hit looked and sounded good but as he turned to run away I could see that the arrow did not pass entirely through. Withthe binos, I could see a good blood trail but I quietly backed out for 2 hours to be sure. I returned at 10:00 to find him about 50 feet from the point of impact. The Rage 2 blade caught the top of the closerlung, center punched the far lung and cut some major plumbing that sent blood in a wide arc around his path.
My area is heavily pressured to include dog hunting. He may not be the monarch of the woods but I am really pumped totake him against the odds. He had a nasty broadhead cut in his scalp above the spine so someone had already taken an unsuccessful shot at him this year.
Some lessons for me:
- I don't know how (or why) I ever hunted without a good set of bino's. I never believed how much they helped until I tried them myself. They provide so much info that is just not available with the naked eye.
- Rattling doesn't work very often but when it does, it works really well.
- I shot him in a lane that I cleared as an afterthought in May. It prevented him from taking complete advantage of my downwind side.
- I called a trusted hunting partner to discuss the back-out decision and it was re-assuring to have a second opinion. He helped me drag the deer out when the time came. Good partners are invaluable.
NC Buck Down + lessons learned
