I had an unusal end to a successfull bow hunt. Saturday morning was opening day for us Tennesseans and I was in my stand about an hour and half before legal shooting light. I was hunting in a ladder stand at the intersection of 3 wooded hollows. For you non-southerners, a hollow is a deep valley between two steep hills. In this case there was 3 hills and 3 hollows that sort of formed a Y shape. I had placed my stand about 3 months ago in anticipation of watching the merging trails that intersected out of the hollows.
About 15 minutes till 7 am, 5 does came off the hill to my right and headed down to one of the trails and crossings that were in front of me. The lead doe was the largest and she came across my front, when she walked behind a huge poplar tree, I pulled my bow back and got ready for a broad side shot when she stepped out the other side. However, when she stepped from behind the tree, she also stepped down the hill and toward me. She was almost at eye level and about 25 yards out. She saw me in the tree and stopped with her front quartering me. I decided to take the shot and my shot was right in front of her right shoulder, that gave me room for error on both sides and if I hit where I was aiming, I would get both lungs. I released the arrow, and my vision ain't what it used to be but it looked like I might of hit a little high but my horizontal alignment looked good. The doe took off like a scalded dog to my right and back up the hollow that leads to my house, which is about 250 yards away. I was able to watch her for about 60 yards and she didn't go down but after she went out of sight it sounded like she hit a fence or went down hard.
Not sure of my hit, I decided to stay in my stand for another hour, which I did. I then got down and went up to where she was standing when I shot. I found my blood covered arrow, but there was not much bright red lung blood on the arrow and more of the normal looking red color. I got to thinking about my shot and I realized that I aimed too high, I should have aimed about 6 inches lower. Don't know what I was thinking. Plus, like I said I think I hit an inch or two above where I aimed.
I figured I'd give her more time, in the mean while, I'd go back to the house and get some lighter clothes (temp was in the low 80's) and put my bow up. The way back to the house I hoped I would cross where she hit the fence. I figured I'd try to find blood on my trail back or hair on the fence and that would give me a starting point to start looking after I gave her some more time to die. She was moving so fast after I shot her, I knew picking up blood in that first 60 or 70 yards was going to be difficult. I didn't find any sign on the way back to the house, no hair on the fence, no blood, no scuffed up ground where she might have fallen. I thought maybe I might even find her dead on the way back but it didn't happen. I knew I had a tough trail but I was determined, I'd find that deer. When I got back to the house, my wife was about to go to work and I told her I'd shot a doe and I was going to give it some more time and then I was going to find her. My wife was all upset. She loves to trail a blood trail and she is good at it. She's younger than me and her eyes can pick up them little specks of blood better than me. She was only going to work 4 hours and she suggested I wait till she got back so she could help. I said no, rain is coming in later in the day and I got to find her before then, plus there was the hot day factor. She was really upset she couldn't help.
I decided to step out on the front porch (goes all the way across the front of the house) and have a smoke. I walked over to the left side of the porch and there is a 1 acre pond about 30 yards from the side of my house. I glanced across the pond, thinking about the task ahead of me and what all I would need to mark blood trails and stuff, and I saw a brown blob in the water on the far side of my pond. I went in and got my binoculars and looked at the brown blob and what I was looking at was my doe. She had run all the way back to the pond and died right there beside the house. I called for my wife and told her to look at that and she started laughing when she looked at the doe with the binoculars. We have a small john boat on the pond and we got in the boat and paddled out and got my deer.
The arrow had entered high, just about where I figured, right in front of the right shoulder and came out low, in front of her left rear leg. I hit the upper part of one of the lungs. Like I said, my selected aimpoint was too high and then I hit about 2 inches high also. I'll know better next time.
I normally enjoy tracking a blood trail but on a day that was getting close to 90 degrees and in rattlesnake country, I was happy to find that my deer had come home. I also enjoyed the grilled tenderloins Saturday night.
The doe was probably about 90 pounds and I was using a Mathews Q2, Beamon 400 ICS arrows with 100 grain 3 blade muzzy's.