ORIGINAL: LebeauHunter
Tough weekend guys.
Here's a not so brief recap:
Sat. morning get on stand well before dark, deer moving around me, stops at daylight, dad was to pick me up at 9:40 a.m. So of course after 3.5 hours in the stand, a fork, spike and doe (wierd combo for this time of year) come towards me right about 9:40. Oh I forgot that we had some deadfall, which partially obstructed one of my shooting lanes.[:@] It was intense as they moved from 100 yards to about 15 yards, of course right to the spot behind the deadfall. I could have shot the fork, but was waiting for the doe, who also happened to be bringing up the rear. I had a few very iffy shots, but wasn't going to take them. I did watch her looking at me with a honey locust pod hanging out of her mouth, which was funny. I needed the doe to take about 2 more steps and then I hear the Mule coming and off they go.
Then my poor dad and I are loading up a cultipacker on a trailer and the thing flips, hits him and knocks him off the trailer onto the rock hard ground. My dad has never spent a day in the hospital and there we are in the ER and he has a 2nd degree separated shoulder. I went late that evening (he wanted me to). His bowseason is on hold. His pain was better Sunday.
Next morning, back on the same stand (in the woods - with 2 white oaks, etc.), lots of deer moving in the dark! About 7:15 here come the same 3 deer from another direction. I saw them and while being really careful (its tough with 3 sets of eyes), I slowly got into position. Everything felt perfect, got my breathing back to steady, smooth draw, didn't feel like I flinched, they didn't see me, perfect broadside - 23 yards. But, the one thing I noticed was I aimed for the crease (should have aimed a couple inches back = don't know why I did that) and as soon as I hit the release I noticed that her front leg was kicked back. I could tell I hit her. I wait half an hour and go to the spot. No blood, no arrow (I looked for the arrow for 30 minutes and knew exactly where I shot her due to a tree). Then I picked up a great bloodtrail about 5 yards away. I followed it easily for about 50 yards and they I noticed it thinning out a little bit. Remembering my rules, I backed out and left for 2 hours, and went pick up a veteran bowhunter who was hunting 350 yards from me. We tracked her for about 100 yards and then she got up about 20 yards in front of us and ran (not well) for about 75 yards and it looked like she bedded down. I could have finished her with a shotgun, but not a bow. We went back now with 3 people about 3 hours later - at this point about 5 hours from the shot. We tried to set an ambush, but no deer. We then tracked her about 100 more yards and the blood ran out. We did a grid search and did everything I could. Our woods is so thick and full of palmettos that you can't see a thing. After the trail went dry, we couldn't do any more. In addition to getting home really late and pissing off my wife I didn't sleep well last night.
I must have hit the shoulder blade and gotten a deflection into the guts (and got really unlucky) b/c I found some small bits of bone in the blood and then we found her chit with some very dark blood in it.
Guys, this bowhunting thing is damn tough. Right now it is kicking my arse. It is making me a much
better hunter - I'm getting deer close without them spotting or smelling me and I'm learning more
about their behaviors, but this is killing me.
Germ, even though I probably made a bad shot, I'm done with the Strikers.
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
