Took A decent one last week
10-17-2005 | 01:55 PM
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Fork Horn
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 304
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From: Chagrin Falls Ohio USA
Took A decent one last week
I was hunting a white oak flat for the first time this year. It was one of the places I really wanted to get to, but had other places that were jumping with deer activity as well.
I finally decided to hunt the oak flat, and hung a stand in between a couple of trees that were still dropping nuts.
After watching a button buck meander around in circles for an hour, two does came flying into my setup as light was beginning to fade. I could not tell if they were does or fawns, so I held off a shot, thinking maybe a larger doe would come in. I just could not believe that two full-grown does would barrel into a set up like that.
Well, as I watched their backtrail, my curiosites were satisfied as a nice, wide 1 1/2 year old 8 point stepped out, clearly on the prowl. He was lip curling, swaggering, and stopped at 15 yards to snort wheeze. I could not believe what I was seeing. I was watching a buck actively pursuing a couple of does, one who was acting awefully in heat now, in the middle of october.
I was still thinking of shooting one of the does when it occured to me that the buck in front of me would not have snort wheezed without a good reason. Just then, I saw another, bigger buck coming in. He also was lip curling and swaggering. I drew my bow.
The goofy doe saw him approaching and urinated in front him. He walked to where she was, sniffed the ground and curled his lip. I took the opportunity to lean out and place my pin on the now-quartering-away buck.
I tripped the release and lost the all-black fletched arrow (damn those turkey arrows) as it closed the 25 yards to the deer. I heard a solid hit, the buck threw his rear legs into the air and promptly slammed rack-first into a 4" sapling. Four times he slammed into the small tree before he got loose and tore out of there.
About 5 seconds later, I heard him crash and burn in a big way.
My buddy Mike and I picked up the trail an hour or so later and found massive amounts of lung blood at the scene of the hit and a blood trail up to 4 feet wide at points. Halfway to the buck we found the majority of my arrow, and he really began to bleed.
The arrow took him right in the back rib, up through both lungs and finally into the off-side shoulder.
I am quite pleased, but it is going to be frustrating to go into the rut with no buck tag!
I finally decided to hunt the oak flat, and hung a stand in between a couple of trees that were still dropping nuts.
After watching a button buck meander around in circles for an hour, two does came flying into my setup as light was beginning to fade. I could not tell if they were does or fawns, so I held off a shot, thinking maybe a larger doe would come in. I just could not believe that two full-grown does would barrel into a set up like that.
Well, as I watched their backtrail, my curiosites were satisfied as a nice, wide 1 1/2 year old 8 point stepped out, clearly on the prowl. He was lip curling, swaggering, and stopped at 15 yards to snort wheeze. I could not believe what I was seeing. I was watching a buck actively pursuing a couple of does, one who was acting awefully in heat now, in the middle of october.
I was still thinking of shooting one of the does when it occured to me that the buck in front of me would not have snort wheezed without a good reason. Just then, I saw another, bigger buck coming in. He also was lip curling and swaggering. I drew my bow.
The goofy doe saw him approaching and urinated in front him. He walked to where she was, sniffed the ground and curled his lip. I took the opportunity to lean out and place my pin on the now-quartering-away buck.
I tripped the release and lost the all-black fletched arrow (damn those turkey arrows) as it closed the 25 yards to the deer. I heard a solid hit, the buck threw his rear legs into the air and promptly slammed rack-first into a 4" sapling. Four times he slammed into the small tree before he got loose and tore out of there.
About 5 seconds later, I heard him crash and burn in a big way.
My buddy Mike and I picked up the trail an hour or so later and found massive amounts of lung blood at the scene of the hit and a blood trail up to 4 feet wide at points. Halfway to the buck we found the majority of my arrow, and he really began to bleed.
The arrow took him right in the back rib, up through both lungs and finally into the off-side shoulder.
I am quite pleased, but it is going to be frustrating to go into the rut with no buck tag!
