This morning I headed out with my last buck tag to an area where I had taken a nice Doe earlier this season. I got the climber on the tree .. made my accent and then readied myself for sunrise. As I sat there longer and longer I began to doubt my location and wondered if I should have gone to a different spot. But I then resigned myself to hunting this spot and see what happens.
I was still sitting not really thinking about anything just kind of enjoying the woods and taking it all in when I see a buck working his way towards me parralleling the ridge angling up to me.... I see he looks like a shooter to me.... but... I cant stand up ... I am afraid at the angle he is at he will see me move so I readied myself for the shot sitting down.
He steps behind a tree and I come to full draw as he emerges from the other side of the tree I settle my 20 yard pin on his lungs and I swear there must have been someone in the tree above me doing jumping jacks
Cause that buck stopped dead in his tracks and looked straight up at me... I am at full draw and he is giving me the stair down and hes not liking what he sees... I am still at full draw and starting to falter... I felt my arm start to creep forward and catch it and pull it back and he is still stairing at me and I started to creep again but catch it and pull it back .. he is still staring at me and I am starting to shake bad cause it feels like I have been holding that 60lbs back forever and the pin leaves hes vitals and I catch it and force the pin back on his vitals.
Now he decided he was outta there and takes one step backwards and his body language is telling me he is gonna backup turn and leave and then I'll have no shot so as he turns I have the frontal shot and decide to take it, I was very confident I could make the shot and I took it.
The arrow looked like it was close to where I wanted but hard to tell since he took off so fast with the arrow stuck in him and no exit, I watched him run down the ridge and at roughly 90 to 100 yards I see him stumble and sway then I see him tip over the other way... I can only see little bits of him through all the trees but I hear a crash and thrashing... I hear a very load roar followed by 4 of the loudest grunts I have ever heard and then it fell dead silent.... I didnt hear him running away anymore and I was pretty confident he was down but I couldnt see him... So I stayed in the tree for about maybe a total of 40 minutes and couldnt stand it any more I had to go and see what was where I heard the grunts.
And he was laying right there dead
We knew the front part of the broken off arrow was stll in him and low and behold it was still stuck in his heart ... so now that I have tagged out on bucks in Illinois I can go back to Doe hunting after the rut, Video taping hunting for fun, and some scouting for next year.
So this puts me at 10 deer down so far this season
He is a 8 pointer with a sticker growing off the back of his left brow tine.