Cloudwalker

A couple of weeks ago I got off work at 6am, went home, got the kids off to school, and then I went to the local hardware store and purchased my hunting license. I drove to the new game lands (3,850 acres)just 10 miles from my house and started scouting. Our rifle season had been in just a little over 2 weeks but it was just too dang warm to do any hunting. I scoped out a tall pine in the middle of a "cut-over" (cut-over: area that has been clear cut and re-seeded itself with very thick underbrush) and decided to check it out. I made my way a couple hundred yards to the pine and stood there with my .356 Winchester thinking how tall and straight this tree was and how well my climbing stand would hang on it. I hadn't been there more than 10 minutes when I heard something coming through the thick brush. I zeroed in on the sound and saw a small cow-horn coming towards me. Even though I could have legally taken the deer I decided against it. The deer browsed around for a couple of minutes and made his way to a pine thicket to my left. A moment or two later I heard the deer coming out, but this time it was good size 4 pointer. Since the body of this deer was so much larger than the one before him I decided to take the shot. He was no more than 25 yards away from me when I pulled the trigger. The 200 grain power point hit hard and knocked him off of his feet. He hit the ground, jumped up and started running sideways and fell again. He got to his feet once more and took off, only to fall again. By now I had jacked another round into the chamber of my lever action but I didn't have a clear shot. The deer bolted to my left and I heard him when he crashed to the ground. I eased the hammer down on my rifle and sat down for about 5 minutes to give the deer time to lay down and expire. I walked down to where the deer was standing when I shot and found a lot of blood. I started tracking the blood trail but after about 10 -15 yards the blood just stopped. I noticed a couple of places where the blood looked like it had been sprayed from a windex bottle so I assumed a high lung shot and the deer was blowing blood from his nose. For one solid hour I looked for this deer,sometimes crawling on my hands and knees trying to pick up the trail again. Nothing! I went home in total disgust!

Fast foreward to this morning. I came out of the woods about 9am and got in my truck to drive home. As I was passing this huge cut-over where I had shot the deer 2 weeks earlier, I see buzzards landing and taking off near the tall pine. I park my truck, get out and walk to where I saw the last buzzard. Sure enough, there is the 4 pointer laying in the tall grass. What hurt my feelings the most was that this deer hadn't run probably 20 - 25 yards from where I shot him. I flipped him over so I could see his left side and sure enough there was a hole about the size of my thumb, dead center his shoulder. I just stood there thinking about all of that meat going to waste.

Man, I really hate when this happens to me.