Here is the last deer I was able to harvest this year. I had a very good year and have been out several times since I shot this button buck. I would of liked a little bigger deer but I'm happy with what I have been able to get. I did get 35lbs of de-boned meat from this last deer. I have a shoulder roast cooking as I write this.
I'm also posting a picture of the blind I shot the button from. I can't say for sure that I would try it again because it did pose some minor problems, but it did work fairly well for being a ground duck blind. Like I say in the story, getting proper height and getting the arrow out the flaps without knocking it off the rest are definite problems.
Good luck to all of you on the rest of your hunting adventures.
Friday, November 22, 2002
After hunting the last stand on the cornfield Wednesday and seeing the does go up to the bank where there are no trees. I decided to try and hunt out of my ground duck blind. The only problem is you can't shoot out of the blind with a bow because it sits too low to the ground. So Thursday night I took the blind and tried laying it length wise against the deck and did shoot one arrow into the target, I would of shot more but it was cold and dark. There are a few minor problems doing it that way, but I think it can be done.
I went ahead and took my hunting stuff with me to work and went in 30 minutes early so I could leave right from work. After changing clothes by the creek road I drove down the cornfield to the area I planned on hunting. I found a likely spot with a trail about 20 yards to my front with a dead fall to by back with some high branches. The bank at this spot is probably 15 feet high with about a 65 degree slope so it was fairly easy to tie the blind to a height I could stand under. The only problem I had was when I tried to pull the bow back the top of the bow would hit the top of the blind. After tying some more string to the frame to get a little more height I cleared a shooting lane and was satisfied I could probably get a shot off. It was about a quarter after three and sunset was at five, so l had plenty of time to hunt.
It wasn't ten minutes before I had a doe come within 10 yards of the blind, but she was a few feet up the slope and didn't really offer a shot and when she did come clear she was to close and I knew I'd make enough noise trying to get the bow into position that I'd spook her. So I just let her wander off.
At about four o'clock some bigger does came down another trail about 50 yards down the draw and headed out of sight. The wind was blowing in my face so I was a bit surprise when the does went dashing back across the draw and stopped to look back my way. Somehow the old doe had winded me. The only thing I could come up with was the bank must of been causing my scent to swirl around, instead of going up and over and out into the corn field. Sometimes it just amazes me after all the precautions you go through washing clothes in special soap, bagging your clothes, using special deodorants and putting it places you don't normally use deodorant. Using cover scents that make you gag, and still they wind you.
After watching those does scurry back into the woods I was wondering if anything would come within bow range. At about ten minutes to five, what I thought was a medium size doe but later turned out to be a button buck came down the trail where I had cleared a shooting lane. As quietly as I could I got into position and felt the blind raise a little as I drew the bow back for the shot. Luckily the arrow hadn't fallen off the rest as it had during a couple of dry runs. When the deer came into range at about 20 yards I let the arrow fly and watched the deer drop in it's tracks. I wish I could say that it was a clean kill but it wasn't. I had made a spine hit and the deer couldn't use it's back legs. I won't go into details, other than to say after waiting a reasonable amount of time I ended up going down and putting another arrow into the vitals and the deer was dead in less than a minute. I only wish I had done it sooner.
Luckily I was right by the road and the only hard part was getting the deer up the bank. After tying a rope around the deers two back legs I went to the top of the bank and pulled the deer up the steep bank to the road.
I would of liked to of gotten a bigger doe but I'm satisfied with the harvest and it should make for some god eats.
