My favorite all-time hunting memory of watching somebody else shoot a deercomes from my teenage years. We lived above an old ash dump, with a nice hillside above it. Anyway, I was hunting with a kid from school, and we had our stands positioned on two parallel benches that traversed the hillside, one about 50 yards above the other. I figure we were around 9th or 10th grade at the time.

As luck would have it, right at dusk, a forkhorn came around the hillside low, right into his stand. I quietly watched what transpired with the bino's. It was late, and daylight had just about faded.

I see him draw and focus my attention to the deer. At that point, I heara loud"Clang" sound, and sparks fly off of this deer's head, right near the base of theantlers. Yes - Sparks! The deer immediatelywent down like Barbaro. Out cold. No flopping or kicking. Just down like a ton of bricks. WTF?

I'm trying to figure out what happened, andthis guy is cheeringlike he just won the Superbowl. Seriously. Dude was going bananas.

Before the celebration even had time to die down, the deer just stands up and staggers away - eventually regaining his wits and bounding the whole way back around the ridge. Wow.

I go down there, and this guy is shaking like a leaf - swearing he hit it hard in the vitals. I said "Dude - you hit it in the head or something, b/c I saw sparks shooting out of its head."



He remembers seeing something flash when he shot, but didn't know what it was. The scenario keeps replaying in our minds - and he's getting progressively more depressed, andI was onthe verge of wetting myself. I remember trying to be supportive, but it was just too damn funny.

So we scrounge around in the leaves and eventuallyfind his arrow - sure enough - no blood. Just some hair and bone jammed in the seams of his Bloodtrailer. Half of the blades were sheared right off, and there wasn't much left of the broadhead.

Honest to god, it looked like a meteor shower coming off of this deer's head when that broadhead dissintigrated across that buck's forehead. Evidently,theglancing impact caused the blades to deploy and instantaneously shear off - causing something tothrow off some sparks that were easily visible in the low light- and ithit hard enough to K.O.the deerfor a solid 30 seconds.