Well, I went ahead and used my buck tag finally tonight... nothing super special, and I didn't even take any pics. He's got a huge body, and an absolutely beautiful double-white throat patch. I think I'll have him caped out and re-mount another one of my mounts that originally had a double-white throat patch, but I messed around and didn't get it to the taxidermist in time and had to use someone else's cape for it. I was never happy with the way that mount turned out, so here's my chance to have it redone, and with another double-white patch to boot!
Some interesting things I got to observe tonight though... The buck was following behind a spike and they were starting to head away as they passed by at about 50 yards or so... I turned them back to me with some very soft and sporadic grunts and when they both got over near me, they started lightly sparring... First time I've ever got to see that, believe it or not.
It looked like they were about to leave the area again so I put my back against the trunk of the tree and slid halfway down before coming to full draw -- that gave me the window I needed to shoot through to avoid some branches. The buck picked up the slight movement even though he didn't seem to be looking my way at all, and it alerted him enough to try to duck at the sound of my shot. I caught him a bit higher than I was aiming, and dropped him in his tracks, though I wouldn't call it your classic "spine shot." He was definitely paralyzed from the midpoint back though.
His will to live absolutely amazed me, and I'll never forget it. Every so often he would sorta growl, but not exactly like on the MADD or Primos videos... He dragged himself probably 15 yards with just his front two feet before he finally presented another shot. I sent it right through the boilermaker, and yet he still kept his head up for several minutes after, even though I could see blood seeping from his chest.
I climbed down, packed up, took my stuff back to my Jeep and brought back my game cart. I was amazed to see his tail move as I walked up to him, and when I came close to his head, he actually opened his mouth and hissed at me. Yep. He did it twice. Absolutely amazing. Now the hissing could have had something to do with the big hole all the way through his chest; he could have been trying to growl and was sucking air, because he had a 1 1/2" wide Rocket Aerohead hole all the way through it... He expired a few seconds later.
He was also really rank, like he was still in rut. That was surprising, too.
Well, I'm done buck hunting this year... It's been a long, hard season with probably between 150-200 hours on stand this year. Funny thing is I blew my best chance at a solidshooter buck the very first night of the season when I had a 140-class pop out into the field I was watching at 25 yards just as I had picked my bow up after climbing down from my stand a tad bit too early. I gotbusted drawing on him by another deer trailing in behind him. I'm still not over that yet...
