Alright, I finally have a minute.

I took Thursday and Friday off work and hunted both days. I saw 8 different bucks on Thursday and Friday mornings. Thursday evening I saw 7 does, and I took Friday night off to let the wife go out and she missed a doe. It was her first shot at a deer ever and she simply got too excited and forgot to look through her peep sight. She missed completely though so in all reality no harm done.

Saturday morning I woke up to another North wind, which I was rather perturbed with because we have had nothing but North winds and we only have a few stands that are good for those conditions. I decided to go to the "corner stand" that is located in the SE corner of the wood lot on my grandparents' farm with an open picked corn field to the south and east (hence the corner name. We are not very original). Going into the stand I spooked a deer that sounded as though it was right at the stand. DANG! Once I climbed into the stand I had another couple of deer walk under my tree but it was too dark to make them out. At first light a doe and her fawn came by. 5-10 minutes later another doe came running through as though being chased. I got my bow and got ready, but it ended up being another doe. Then from the west came a 1.5 year old 8-point. Then more does. Then deer were out in the field to thesouth.Finally, this old boy appeared in the field to the south just before 8 o'clock.The deer had been coming by so regularly that my hand was throbbingfrom the cold holding my bow the whole time as I was too afraid to hang it back up. He came north into the woods but was east of me and well out of my shooting lanes.Luckily, he turned west and headed right for me. That is when I noticed the crooked G3 on his left antler and knew exactly who he was. This was the first deer that we have ever targeted and herehe was coming right at me! His head disappeared behind an oak and Istruggled to draw my bow because of all the layers I had on to stay warm. I settled on my anchor points, but as he came out on the other side of the oak he was facing me and he looked right up at me! I thought I was busted, but he quicklyput his nose back on the ground and gaveme a slightly quartering-to shot at 12 yards. Iput the pin behind his shoulder and watched my arrowdisappear exactly where I wanted. He took off back to the field and then just stood there. I expected him to fall over, but he just kept standing there. He then walked off to the west without a wiggle. I was emotionally flattened as I thought I misjudged how badly he was angled. Long story short I made a good shot and he only went about 100 yards.

It was still a rather bitter-sweet day though since we couldn't find my dad's buck. It was looking at him when he shot at it at 30 yards perfectly broadside. Only about 3" behind the shoulder were visible due to a tree that was blocking the rest. The arrow was on the correct side of the tree, but by the time it got there that dang deer had moved far enough for the arrow to gut shoot him. Terrible luck but I guess it teaches the lesson that you just can't shoot at one that is looking at you. We searched everywhere and literally wore ourselves out trying to find that thing. We gave him 7 hours and he had travelled well over 800 yards. It was the toughest tracking job I have ever been on. We tried everything. We even tried teh dogs and they couldn't even find him. Just a bad thing really.