One of the beautiful things about writing a story for this forum is all of the kind words my bow hunting brethren say about the adventures of which I have been lucky enough to be a part. Thank you.

Believe me when I say how flattered I am by all of the generous remarks; it really is very humbling. I don't consider myself an "expert" in this marvelous pursuit of ungulates. I sometimes get lucky because I spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around their neighborhoods. It really is as simple as that.

For me I thinkthe big surprise in this years version was lack of controversy. I figured somebodymight cry foul when I put on a public forum that an animal took as long as it did to expire after impact.

Obviously the reaction of the buckto this hit is the exceptionwhen impact is in the location it was. While I have seen it happen before, my best guess would be perhaps only about2% of deer make it to the time frame of this buck after a good hit.

My feeling is that it does us no good to stick our heads in the sand and pretend something like this doesn't occasionally happen. I think it does all of us good to see that "weird" things do some timeshappen, educate ourselves as such,and hopefullywhen the unexpected happens we have a better idea on how to handle it.