HuntingNet.com Forums - Official Team Heart Stoppers Thread (1)

Bowhunt 2005

November 8th

Wind SE 10-15

Temperature 55-60

Stand, big oak along freds property line

After a very uneventful morning hunt (no deer, on squirrel, 3 1/2 hours of hunting) I was trying to figure out where I could hunt, the property owner and his son said they were going to go out hunting around 2pm but I wanted to get into the woods a bit earlier than that, it was the rut and I have had some luck in previous years seeing bucks up and about wandering looking for does around the time when most people are in having lunch.

Earlier in the morning the three of us went out, but only one in the group had seen any deer. So with the wind forecast in hand, I drove out to the property and called the land owner to see where he wanted me to go, much to my suprise he suggested the spot I thought he was going to have his son hunt, about 100 yards away from where he had seen deer during the morning hunt, the area is in a lowland with some hardwoods, lots of what we call buck thorn (small twiggy underbrush that grows like wildfire and very thick) and tamaracs.

After parking my vehicle and gathering my bow and hunting gear up, I walked the 1/4 mile into the stand from the downwind side, luckily I had planned for a warmer hunt and not worn my usual november hunting attire, but I had still worn to much clothing, I was extremely warm by the time I got to the stand. About 150 yards from the stand, on the upwind side, I decided to do a drag line with some doe estrous scent and walked into the stand and placed the cotton swab about 15 yards from the stand hanging on a branch. I haven't had alot of luck with this in the last couple years but I figured it couldn't hurt.

So, I am finally at the stand, around 1pm, I crawl up into it, get my jacket out of the backpack, and liberally douse myself in a scent suppresor. (Dead downwind, first season I started using this, and I have not had a deer whistle at me at all this year, a few nervous spooks but no out right getting busted) Put my jacket on, pull the bow up, get situated, take a few shots with the range finder to determine where my shots would be and settle in for what I had planned on a couple hour wait till the does started to move.

I had been on stand no more than a 1/2 hour and I noticed movement in the buckthorn to the east of the stand, I get ready, and a small spike steps out into the shooting land about 30 yards away. He mosey's through the shooting lane and into the buckthorn on the other side of the lane. No more than 10 minutes later a doe comes running down the Southeast shooting lane and stops about 35 yards away, she was a good sized doe, and mouth wide open sucking air. Getting a bit excited to see a running doe I get ready for what has to be coming. It wasn't a long wait, less than a minute later a spike steps out 50 yards away, staring the doe down (a slightly bigger spike than the one I had previously seen) the doe wanders off to the southwest, till she gets about 10 yards from my dragline and starts acting cagey. The spike meanwhile has been joined by a small 6 pointer while having a bigger rack is smaller in body than the spike. The 6 pointer begins to rub on the buckthorn on the edge of the shooting lane while the spike wanders deeper into the buckthorn, intent on the doe. The doe is still skittish, refusing to get any closer to the dragline, and about 30 yards from where i have the scent wick hanging from the tree. After about 5-10 minutes of all three deer standing around, the doe turns around a brisquely heads to the west, tail was not up, she was not running, but she was not happy about where she was. The spike gave a grunt and followed. The 6 pointer is oblivious, intent on showing the buckthorn who is the boss.

Finally the 6 pointer wanders off to the northeast, into the buckthorn, and I see a pair of legs, break out the binoculars and see that is another doe, they mill around in the buckthorn for a bit and wander off deeper into the brush until I am unable to pick them out anymore.

Well for not expecting to see much on a hot early November afternoon, I had seen 3 bucks and two does already, a pretty good afternoon hunt.

After doing a slow turn to see if anything had snuck up on me, I notice movement down one of the shooting lanes, another doe about 100 yards away in heavy cover, watching her through the binoculars I see a second set of legs, watching for about 5 minutes I finally determine it is another doe, the whole time eager with anticipation to see the second deer have a set of horns, but after the last 3 times out, seeing any deer, especially in the numbers I had already seen is a good day.

Both does wander deeper into the brush, and I take a quick peek over my right shoulder into the grassy area to the south of the tree and my eyes alight on a buck, not any buck but a shooter, my heart rate jumped, my knees got a slight shake to them, he is about 75 yards away and heading to where I thought I might be able to get a shot. I take a quick peak through the binoculars I try to count the points, I can see it looks like a 10 pointer, but there is other things going on with the rack, I see points where there are not normally points. The buck is now about 50 yards away and coming at a good pace, I put the binoculars in my pocket and pick out where I think the shot might happen, he is now 40 yards directly south of me, approaching the trail I came in on, with my drag line, I thought for sure he would hit that and swing north towards my stand, right to where I would have a good shot at him. He gets to the scent line, and startles forward, across it, and into the buckthorn on the west side of the trail. He works his way deeper into the buckthorn and is quickly gone, leaving me there shaking, breathing heavy and doubting my use of a scent. Two deer close to the drag line, two deer both spooking by it, or was it my scent, even with showering before heading out, and rubber boots, I know I must leave some scent from where I walk in.

Now the mental games started, was it the drag line, did I have a shot while he was directly south of the stand, did I move and he chose not to come in because of that.....well I could check one thing, I got out my range finder and checked the distance on where he was and determined that he was at 42 yards, to long of a shot for me, that made me feel a little better, and after about 10 minutes the excitement of the encounter had worn off and I settled down.

Hearing movement and grunting in the buckthorn to the northeast I see a doe come out at 50 yards, soon after a one horned 2 pointer comes out, and chases her off to the east, another doe comes out and follows the two. Wow, so much activity and it is only 2:45pm, a phenomanl day of hunting, I am soaking in the ambiance of the day, the wind in my face, the sunlight filtering through the trees, the very smell of fall in the air, how can you not get excited about being in the woods, with the added bonus of seeing deer. While thinking these thoughts I look in longing to where the big buck had left my view, and lo and behold, he is coming back out.

He is angling towards my stand.

He is at 45 yards, behind some brush.

He is at 35 yards, in the open but no shot.

He is at 30 yards, on the other side of the tree trunk that makes up part of the tree I am in.

I peer around the edge of the tree.

I see him, I draw my bow back.

He is about twenty yards away, broadside walking.

I grunt at him.

He stops, I say a quick prayer, and the arrow is gone.

I see the arrow hit him, not to far forward, not to far back, my knees are jello, I am almost panting. The buck takes off down the logging road to the southeast.

My jubilation instantly turns to dread, I see the arrow sticking out of him, I see ALOT of arrow sticking out of him, I see the arrow fall out of him after about 4 or 5 strides. I watch the buck run down the road, digging at the ground like when you break a leg.

I see the buck run into the woods about 100-120 yards away, I think he stops, but about 4-6 deer in the area scatter, I try to find him in my binoculars but am unable to locate him.

Why did the arrow fall out? Did I hear a 'crack' when the arrow hit him? Why couldn't I have aimed a little further back?

I imagine I see a deer 150+ yards fall over, but cannot see anything in the glasses.

I call the landowner, to let him know I had hit one, I recounted what had happened, and we agreed to wait 30 minutes before I got out of the stand to look at the arrow.

Thirty minutes, 1800 seconds, not that long of a time period? an eternity to run the events that had just transpired in your mind. Like a dog worrying a bone, I wonder how such a great day could have gone so wrong. Finally the 30 minutes are up, during this time I had seen 2 more small bucks, a nubbin buck, and 4 anterless deer, I imagine I see a big deer walking at the edge of my vision in the woods but am unable to see what it is, if it ever was. I get out of the stand and locate the arrow about 30 yards from where I had hit the buck, 4 inches of arrow is missing. A small amount of blood is by the arrow.

I call the landowner to report my findings, he tells me to come in and we will go out as a group to track him. I hang up, go about 20 yards down the road where I saw the buck run, looking for blood, any blood, nothing. A sickness settles in your stomach after you shoot at a deer and the sign is as thin as it was, it is a nasty roller coaster of emotions, deer hunting. The highs of seeing a big buck, the even higher highs when he is in range and the brief moment of timelessness when you make that shot, then the bottomless lows when all that preperation, the practice, the scent control, the sitting on stand for hours, days, seasons, waiting for that shot, and you are left with a broken arrow and no noticeable blood after 50 yards from the impact site.

I walk back to the arrow, to mark the spot with a field tip arrow that I have in my quiver. I pick up the broken arrow and notice that the rubber band from my expandable arrow (Rocket Wolverines) is pushed up about 9 inches past the where the arrow broke, looking closer I see that there is blood all the up to the rubber band and about 3 inches past it. I mentioned roller coasters, well the low just shot back up to a high, the poor outlook started looking alot better, 4 inches of pentration just jumped up to at least 12 inches maybe more. I walked back to my truck, lost alot of layers of clothes, and went to gather up the tracking party.

4:15pm, we are back in the woods looking at the arrow, looking for blood, the landowner and his son are checking for the blood trail and i am glassing the woods, we get about 30 yards from the arrow, finding little drops of blood occasionally, and the trail comes to a possible junction, after a couple minutes, another drop of blood is found and the direction is determined, and we gather to discuss our options, press on? let him lay a bit longer? what do to?

While this is going on, I am looking around and a bit of white catches my eye, I bring up the binoculars and what do I see? a big white belly with a horn sticking up. I tell my partners that the buck is 70 yards in the brush, they weren't able to see it, I am getting pretty excited, and for whatever reason the landowner thought he was still alive, what with the broken arrow, the poor blood trail, whatever, he tells his son to get an arrow ready, I tell them that he is dead, "right over there" they still can't see him, I try to get them to see where but for whatever reason they don't believe/understand me. Finally the landowner looks back at me and sees me looking through my binoculars, He asks for them, and tries to find it in the glass, his angle is wrong, I get him into the right area and he sees it "wooot, there is a dead buck over there, congratulations"

We get over to the buck and see that I hit him right where you are supposed to hit a deer, with a gun, right dead center in the front shoulder, I am just lucky that the arrow managed to find it's way through the front shoulder into the chest cavity. I believe that the arrow went through the front should, through the windpipe, both lungs and it lodged in the opposite shoulder (we found the arrow that nite quartering up the carcass) snapped off on the first step by the buck and worked itself out.

Counting the points he had 5 on the right, and 7 on the left with a 5 inch tine at the base of the left horn and a 2 inch tine between the G-2 and G-3, measuring him up that nite in my fathers garage, we came up with about 149 inches of horn.

The only thing to take the shine off the moment was that my father was unable to be there, but that is par for the course, I only seem to shoot deer when he is out of town, but the landowner was gracious enough to allow me drag the deer out about 100 yards onto the road and come back that evening to collect him with my dad in tow. So he was there for part of the hunt, in person, the other part he was with us on the cell phone from minutes after I made the shot, along with when we were walking up to the deer. Normally I don't have much use for cell phones but this was one time it was really nice to have around.

What a day, from not seeing a deer during the morning hunt, to non-stop action in the evening with the chance and opportunity to shoot the biggest buck I have ever had that close. From the highs of seeing him, then seeing him walk away, then he comes back, close enough to shoot, then the thoughts of a bad shoot to seeing it was a better shot that initially thought, to seeing him laying in the woods, with a non-existant blood trail........and people wonder why people bow hunt......