I am the superstitious type, but for me and my buddy this Friday the 13th will be one to be rememebered. We both scored on our biggest bucks to date. Here are the stories:
I settled into my stand around 3:20 p.m. for an evening hunt at a spot that I've hunted for the last several years. This spot is fairly unique. It's a mix of open mature hardwoods with tons of red oaks with the occasional white oak thrown in and denser less mature pole timber. On the northwest side is a business and the parking lot butts up against the property with a fence separating the woods from the lot. To the west running north and south are train tracks that have grassy brush and some heavier briars on either side. The deer generally bed in the northwest somewhere near the tracks where they have a good vantage point and the ability to smell danger. They will usually parallel the tracks along the fence and jump into the woods in the corner where they will split off onto one of several trails that sends them into the hardwoods to feed on acorns. You have to be careful in setting up a stand because if you get too close to the grassy area they will pick you up and stay away, but if you are too far into the woods you may miss deer as they split off to different areas of the woods. My stand is situated about 50 yards in from the grass and 60 yards from the fence so a vast majority of the deer are funneled past me. I also have another stand if the wind is not right, but that stand is another 50 yards to the south and I lose shots at deer that hug the fence area. Also that stand does not offer great cover, but my primary stand has excellent cover. I set up with my stand facing the southwest and being left handed I have shots over 180 degrees to my right, front, and rear.
The evening was cool and we just had a cold front move in so I was excited about the deer moving. The wind was shifting from northwest to southeast and north to south. The north to south is less than ideal, but not bad enough for me to go into my backup stand. The evening wore on very slowly without even the usual entertainment of squirrels to keep me occupied. I called with various calls every 15 to 30 minutes just to break the boredom and was basically enjoying being somewhere other than work. At 5:30 I knew the magic hour was approaching so I grabbed my bow and began my serious scanning. Nothing was to be seen until around 6:00 when I caught motion off to my right. I looked out into the grassy area to see a big body and antlers paralleling the train tracks. I got out my Can call and hit it twice. This stopped the buck in his tracks and he peered into the woods to find the source of the sounds. I waited and hit the Can again to convince him that he did indeed hear something. After about a minute he began walking parallel to the woods again and I lost him in the brush. After struggling to find him for afew minutes he bounded into the woods and stood at the intersection of the trail. One branch would bring him straight to my stand offering me numerous shots at chip shot distances. The other would take him within 12 yards of my back up stand, but only offer me a 30-35 yard shot from my stand. He took the latter and moved along broadside to me. I drew and bleated stopping the buck. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my pin on him because my cover was a little too good and my top limb was caught up in some overhanging branches. The buck began to walk again as I sat down in my Summit Bullet with my Allegiance still at full draw. I bleated again stopping the buck in a perfect opening. I leveled my pinslightly high on his shoulder since the single pin is at 25 yards and released. The Spitfire tipped ACC flew true and hit it's mark half way up the deer's chest right behind the shoulder leaving only my nock and fletching showing from his boiler room. He wheeled and ran on a trail heading south along the edge of the woods into some heavier cover. I lost sight of him and listened intently for the tell-tale crash, but heard none, but I was very confident in the shot nonetheless.
I checked my watch and it was about 6:07. I waited until about 6:25 and quietly got out of my stand, gathered my gear and went back to my car. Once I got back to the stand site it was about 6:45 and light was just about gone. I went to where I thought the buck was standing and couldn't find any blood or the arrow. Having lost deer in the past by pushing them I decided that it was going to be plenty cool and without having seen or heard the deer go down it would be better to let the deer wait. I called my buddy who told me he also hit a nice buck and we decided to look for his Friday (that's another story) and go for mine in the morning.
The next morning we get to the spot a little after first light and after an exciting and sleepless night I was ready to go. We got to the stand site and I told my buddy Karl where the deer was standing 32 yards from me and he began looking for blood. I showed him the trail he went on and about 8 yards into that trail we found blood. It was an easy blood trail from there that ended about 50 yards later with a beauty of an 8 point buck. The final stats are a 16 1/2 inch inside spread 3 1/2 inch brow tines, 7 1/2 inch G2s, one 5 inch G3 and a broken off 3 3/4 inch G3, 18 inch main beams and 4 inch bases. He is by far my best buck with a bow or otherwise and I am proud as ever to have taken him. We estimate his live weight at close to 180 pounds, which is a very big deer for our area of PA. The only downside to this was that someone broke into my car and stole my digital camera while we were recovering the deer (they left my bow though).
I realize how long this is and will post my buddy's story in another post. On to the pictures:
