Well, I am posting this in the bowhunting forum because although I took this deer with a gun...I will probably never do it again.
Story goes like this. I have seen almost 50 deer this year during bow season-spikes, does with fawns, and young bucks. I have also seen another 8 and a 10 on the first day of bow season so I was waiting and waiting. I wanted my first deer with a bow to be a good one(even though they' re all good). I put in probably 40+ hours in various stands do get this wonderful buck. Well, opening day gun was last weekend. I brought my bow and my 30.06. Everyone else on the lease was hunting with a gun and I stuck by my bow the first morning. I saw another 8 point at 40 yards but was not going to take a shot past 30 no matter what especially after losing a turkey a few weeks ago.
I get back to camp tell the other guys what I saw and they convinced me to at least take my gun so I brought both. I was hunting out of the Ameristep Penthouse blind so I could easily take both and be fine.
Anyways, I get to the blind and had decided I was going to take a turkey. I didn' t see any. At 5:49PM about 15 minutes or so before legal time was up I actually started to pack up. Well at about 65 yards that buck walked out. I immediately began shaking like a leaf. Then thoughts of doubt as to whether my bow would perform started crossing my mind. Will I get a pass thru, will I get good penetration. I had no doubt that I could make a kill at 40 yards or less but as I stated above 30 was my set limit. He walked to 35 yards...now I' m really freaking out. Do I take the shot or not? Like I said I was in a ground blind. The grass crunched when I went to get on one knee. He heard me and bounded two leaps and stopped. Then his tail went down and he went on about his business. He was coming back..oh my gosh I' m getting a second chance. Well he then figured something just wasn' t right and bounded off to about 60 yards. So I then thought I don' t want to miss out on the first 8 pt I have ever had an opportunity to take. So in my weakness I grabbed my gun, popped a round off and he dropped in his tracks.
After he dropped all I could think of was...hmmm that' s it!? What I mean by that is it just didn' t seem to have the thrill for me that I thought it would. Almost like it was too easy using the gun. I can honestly say that even though I lost a turkey a few weeks ago(that I shot with my bow) I had much more of a lasting thrill(if that' s what you want to call it) and satisfaction then I did when I took this deer. I must say that I am very thankful for this buck but I will also say I think from now on I will let the opportunity pass rather than use a gun again. It just didn' t " do it" for me. Any body else feel this way? All my buddy' s are telling me to shut up because you got an 8. Well maybe I should.