I just got back from my first Illinois hunt with my dad. I was on some property a friend of mine from work invited us to hunt on. On Friday I went out and didn't see anything from dawn until5 pm. Out of boredom I started mashing on my rattle bag and within 30 seconds this big guy comes trotting in from behind me. He circled around 35 yards in front of my stand, I mouthed a "maaaahp" at him and he stopped between 2 trees. I let my arrow fly and to my horror it him him back a ways. I checked my arrow. It was bloody with white hair. My buddy and I decided we should back off until tomorrow.

The next day me, my buddy, and my dad went out to track him. We found blood and it started to pick up. We tracked blood for about 100 yards and it just stopped. Nothing. He was heading fora thicket so we walked through the thicket. Sure enough heslowlystood up right in front of my dad and trotted off. We could see guts hanging out of the entrance wound. This was nearly 18 hours after the shot.

So we backed off again and went home. Another sleepless night passed. I thought he was gone. The next morning we hunted until 11 and looked for the deer some more. My dad noticed 2 buzzards circling near the area we jumped him. Dad found him 100 yards from where we saw him yesterday. He was huge! He was a little bloated but he still weighed 230 pounds live weight. He's the biggest deer I've ever seen in the woods. I couldn't be happier. And to have my dad be such a big part of the recovery was awesome.....

The recovery thread on this forum was a big reason we chose to give him time. We never would have found him if we pushed him any harder.