After getting busted yesterday afternoon, I woke up this morning at the crack of 4am to get a jump on the day. First step was to check the weather and the second was to take care of morning business. I then headed out at about 5:30 and was on the climber platform about 5 minutes later. It was relatively quiet setup and after using the pull-up rope to hang a scent bomb of vanilla I sat back and enjoyed my soaking wet seat.
Light came and so did discouragement because I heard about 5 shots around me, but saw nothing. I've never seen a deer walk out in the morning, all of my sightings have been in the afternoon. About 7:30 my question of whether I was wasting time was answered when a good size doe stepped out and came toward my cornpile. She wasn't out 10 minutes before she gave me a perfect broadside shot at 35yds, so I took it. She ran about 40yds and I heard her crash, so I went ahead and made my way down the tree and found my arrow. After marking the first blood I walked back across the street, got my son and we started the tracking job into thick underbrush.
There's one pic of the entrance wound from the Rage 2-blade and the other is of me and my son with the doe. The Rage did it's job 100%. I'm shooting a Parker Wildfire at 61lbs with a 29" draw and got a complete passthrough with both the entrance and the exit wounds the same size. She weighed 60lbs after we dressed her, our first dressing job and it wasn't as smelly as it's made out to be. Took us a little longer because it was a learning experience, but it saves money because the processor charges by the pound and weighs them before they do anything else. The gutting probably saved us a little over $30 on the processing fee. My son gets a lot credit here, he's 9yo and helped me trim the shooting lane, track the deer and gut her. He put a lot of work into it, so he's owed credit but only wanted snack sticks.
