Is it dead yet?
This is definately one for the books.
Took my 13 year old son bowhunting for
the first time yesterday evening.
I set him up in a patch of oaks between
two cattail swamps about 2 hours before dark.
My stand was about 100 yards from his.
I hadnt been in my stand for 20 minutes
when I heard Michael yelling. I quickly
climbed down and ran towards his stand.
The first thing I thought was somehow he
had fallen out of his stand. As I approached his
stand I could hear a tremendous commotion
in the cattails just to the right of his stand and
lots of hollering. When I got into the cattails
I realized his plight. Heres what happened:
No more than 5 or 10 minutes after I left
him a nice 7 point walked out of a thicket and
started feeding on acorns right under his
stand. Michael waited until the deer moved out
a little and took a broad side shot. The
deer bolted through a blowdown and apparently
struck a limb and collapsed. Micheal, thinking
the buck was dead, was so excited he decided
he couldnt wait like I had instructed.
He approached the deer, took a quick admiring
look and decided to drag it over to me.
He attached the top part of his saftey belt around
the deers antlers and the other part was still around
his waist. After two sharp tugs the buck decided to
wake up. Needless to say a wrestling match ensued.
All Michael could do was hold on for deer life as
the buck bounced around like a roped calf. (The
deer weighed 15 pounds more than him). When I got to
Michael the two had worked their way
over to the cattail swamp and had commenced
to mud wrestling. Michael had two hands on
the horns and his legs wrapped around the deer.
The deer was bleating, Michael was screaming as
I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded on what to
do first. I took out my knife and tried to cut
the saftey harness but I couldnt keep hold of it.
I told Micheal to let go and he did. The deer staggered
up but fell down again. This gave Michael enough
time to slip out of his saftey belt. I ran and grabbed my
bow and when the deer got to his feet again I
shot him. He went about 50 feet and collapsed.
Michaels shot clipped the shoulder and the top of
one lung. The deer would have probally travelled
a ways before it died.
Lesson learned, if the eyes are shut, hes sleeping,
not dead. Fortunately Michael only suffered some
bruises and a couple of facial contusions.
After all of that, the first thing he asked me
was "can we go again tommorrow?"