I am never ceased to be amazed at the strangeness of deer hunting.
Friday evening I have a nice 8pt come in to my can call. He walks behing a big cedar and I come to full draw. He steps out and I quickly baa at him. He stops not 23 yds away. I set the pin at release.
Find the arrow.....not much blood. It is dark now and couldn't find blood for 40 yards. Decided to back out and look in the morning. Took my daughter and we find blood. Not much......just a little every now and then. I am getting discouraged knowing I didn't hit this deer good. We track this deer for over 800 yards. Find a puddle of blood where it must have laid down. Then absolutely nothing. We searched for over 4 hours some on our hands and knees. I gouphill about 80 yards and find 3 small drops. Go another 30 and 2 small drops.....then absolutely nothing. I injured a deer and I am bummed the rest of the day.
Fast forward to today. I wake at 5 a.m. and ask my daughter if she would like to go out. She mumbles she is too tired and I decide I am too.
I finally get my lazy butt up and get a shower and decide I would go out to the stand and pretty much goof off. Just looking to see if I spot anything moving during the middle of the day.
I didn't even get in the stand. I had a folding chair that I set up in front of a big cedar. No mask on and sitting on the ground in the wide open. I am glassing the meadow out to my left. I happen to turn to my right and there is this 6pt staring right at me not 40 yds away. I stay perfectly still and he walks to a tree line in front of me. There is a path cut with trees between him and me. I see him walking through and he steps out about 15 feet and looks right at me.
He is now within 20 yards and I lower the boom on him. I wasn't counting on this at all. I carried my .30-06 with me expecting a much farther shot opportunity. I was definitely not expecting anything to come from where he did with all the tracking and scent leaving the previous day in that area.
Anyway the .06 was definitley overkill for this particular situation but I have meat for the freezer.
I wasn't out there 40 minutes. Wish it was the 8pt coming back for more but I will take what I am given.
Like I said.......never ceased to be amazed when deer hunting.
I know ......violation of MAN LAW.....no pic to post as of yet.
UPDATE
Got mydeer this evening.....saw him about 150 yds along a tree line......dropped him in his tracks. I did hit him across the brisket with my bow.....nasty cut. Glad to have got another shot and not let him suffer. Ended up being a 9pt. Had a kicker off the G2 you can't see in the pic. Bad camera angle.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo326/flyinfeathers/johns9pt.jpg
I apologize for not cleaning him up before the pic. My daughter was to anxiousto get the pic taken.