Well my am hunting plan worked to perfection(it doesn't happen very often in my world).,,before I went to bed last night I was reading a book, a thought hit me and decided to move my stand 40 yards to the west. I had seen a nice buck there two days earlier. About 7:30 I rattle ever so lightly. About 3 minutes later a beautiful buck comes walking down the ridge followed by a doe. He comes right at me, I come to full draw when his head is behind a tree at 20 yards....he keeps coming and I can get no shot. I am on full draw for probably 60 seconds. He stops at 8 yards, turns perfectly broadside and begins to walk into my shooting lane. He stops. Turns the other way and goes back left. I have a small shooting window and decide that the shot looks great. What I didn't realize is that my body was twisted up a bit and not in great shooting form due to the erratic movement of the buck. I let the arrow go on what I thought was the vitals...it hit smack dab in the middle of the buck's body, both parallel and horizontal. I saw him run about 50 yards and then bed down.

I waited 2.5 hours before backing out of my tree stand, only moving when the wind would blow hard. I saw him get up and stumble/bed down 4-5 times over that time period. He didn't look good. Everything inside of me wanted to end that bucks suffering, but I knew I would blow everything I worked hard for if I rushed it. I backed out at 10:15 and shot the buck at 7:40am. I truly believe he is paunch/liver hit. I am gonna wait until 3:30pm, a full 8 hours after shooting him to enter back into the woods and try and find him. I just need some encouragement. It is gonna be a long 4 more hours!!

shadow