Thanks, guys! I really appreciate all the comments... and I see the missus snuck down here and commandeered my computer while I was curled up in the fetal position!
Amazing... she's out walking through the woods with me, carrying my bow back while I'm hauling the deer out... and it hits me and I'm OUT... [8D]('Course, I gotta say that I never saw her throw up every thirty minutes ALL night long... had to be one of the longest nights of my life last night [:'(]) Still... I've got an awesome wife.
gzg38b... that's the entrance hole; I really would have liked to have been a bittighter to her shoulder, but the oak tree shestepped behind and hid herfrom me drawing covered where I'd really liked to have placed my shot after she took a step. I aimed a couple inches off the tree and buried the arrow about eight inches into the ground after passing through her. As Alison mentioned, she didn't travel far... though it was more like 60 yards as opposed to 30...
Pretty neat story from my perspective; after hunting Illinois the last 10 years or so (and I'll be hunting it again come Oct. 1; in fact the landowner called me this morning while I was in bed to let me know he saw the three big wallhangers again this morning running in a bachelor group... You know you're taking care of your landowner when he calls YOU to tell you about deer he's seeing!
)... anyway, after hunting Illinois so long, I admit I can get pretty pessimistic about hunting Missouri -- at least where I'm from in Missouri. Up north, above the I-70 beltline, it's great. Down in Southeast Missouri, not so much -- especially when hunting public land.
I walked in yesterday afternoon, and walked about two miles of field edges and fire lanes cut through the woods, and cut ONE set of tracks leading from a bean field to the other side of a brushy, overgrown hillside. I stepped back and took stock of the situation... The hillside would make a perfect bedding area, as it would afford a view of anything approaching from below, while the wind was blowing from over the top of the hill and allow them to smell anything coming. If I wasn't so religious about scent control, they really should have already smelled me.
I also recalled reading in Don Higgins' recent book how he thinks summer-pattern deer don't bed far from a food source; this hillside was probably 100 yards or less from this bean field. I backtracked and found a good tree to scoot up about 20 yards off the field (I really wanted to be able to glass the field later that evening with my Nikons), and positioned my climber on the opposite side of the tree from which I expected the deer to come. I was interrupted fifteen minutes later as I was reading my owner's manual for my GPS unit as I caught movement coming from that direction. I turned to watch a fawn sneak down the fire lane separating the hill from the bean field. Searching with my binoculars quickly allowed me to pick up another fawn, followed by their mother.
These two stayed on the trail, and eventually ended up coming straight in at me; I was worried I wasn't going to have a shot until the mother finally turned behind the tree and took a step forward at 17 yards. To have a mature doe, with at least two more sets of eyeballs that close (I say at least two, because I'm still not really sure if there were triplets, as I picked up another fawn below me as I was drawing... though it could have been the earlier one I had spotted) and trying to get to full draw without being picked off was more than a little challenge.
To top if off, it was 4:10... At least three if not three and a half hours of daylight left. I still had my long-sleeve camp shirt tucked between my feet and the tree, while my headnet and gloves were still in one of my cargo pockets... The way you see me in that first pic? That's how I was holding my bow out with release clipped on and trying to get drawn! [8D]
As far as the Muzzy question, Rob almost had it right... This was my Allegiance, which sports an APA Twister Safari fallaway... the Muzzy is on my Tribute. My plan is to hunt with my Allegiance with speed mods until the weather starts gettting colder and makes the old shoulders stiffer and harder to work (right, Quiksilver? [8D])... then switch to the Tribute with smooth mods which will hopefully allow an easier draw cycle when the muscles aren't as loose.
Anyway... Thanks guys.