Friday, October 28th, I decided to go hunting in the afternoon. The winds were supposed to be out of the South at about 20 which is about my limit for stand hunting. I notice as I'm driving down the dike road that they've picked the corn to the North of my stand and that's a good thing. I arrive at the hunting spot at 1530 and there's a doe standing by the cable which is another good sign. I'm in my stand and all set up by 1550, the wind is off my right side which is also a good thing for a evening hunt. When you’re sitting up in a deer stand waiting for something to come within range, it's hard to occupy your time. I glassed a little, but otherwise just kept looking around trying to spot any movement and react to any sound. Squirrels are really bad about making leaf crunching sounds as they scurry around below. I alternate between standing and sitting in order to keep the blood flowing in the legs. I usually stand facing the tree holding onto a nice sturdy branch with my left hand always conscious of where my feet are on the stand platform. Even though I have a safety harness on I really wouldn't want to weight test the thing and a 16 foot fall wouldn't be any fun either.
My stand faces a small patch of dogwood trees which offer good concealment for the deer and make them feel safe. I have two shooting lanes to my front with an old open grass covered slough to by back. I had just turned around after standing for a half hour and was in the process of sitting down when I saw a deer not 20 yards to my right walking through the dogwoods. As he got closer I saw he was a small 3 by. So I'm waiting to see if he offers me a shot as he passes just outside of one shooting lane and goes around another. Plus I'm saying to myself that it's too early to take a small deer with the rut just getting started, so I let the deer pass. I was waiting for him to get down wind to see if he would scent me but, before that happened, here came a much bigger buck. Now this one got the old heart pumping. I'm thinking to myself this one’s too big to pass up and with the way he was coming it was going to be a nice 5 yard shot. I only shifted my weight by spinning a little on one foot to get into position and must have made ever so slight a sound, but it caused the buck to stop and I swear he was looking right at me for a few seconds before he continued on. Now we’re just talking a couple more steps before he is in the heart of a shooting lane when he stops again and I know he knows something just isn't right. By this time I have the bow drawn back and have the sight pin on his neck but I want him to take another step to expose his shoulder. I can tell he's going to turn around because I've seen this scenario too many times when they’re this close. As he turns, his shoulder comes into view and I let the arrow fly.

WARNING: The following narrative contains graphic details that are meant for mature audience.

The arrow finds its mark with a loud whack, and as the deer turns he goes immediately down with an arrow to the spine. His rear legs are useless. At 5 yards I see blood streaming down his back. I look at my watch and it's 1740.
I've hit several deer in the spine and they do not die quickly. I can only hope that this ones different because he seems to be bleeding more than some of the others. As I wait I watch the deer try to stand and fall and then drag itself along the forest floor. I know I'm going to have to go down and finish him off. Normally I just go down and put another arrow through the lungs, but for some reason I didn't want to waste another arrow. So I find a 6 foot long 1 inch diameter stick. I take the stick and split the end and lash the butt end of the knife in the slit and have myself a nice sturdy spear. By this time the deer has drug himself about 20 yards away. As I approach the deer his hind legs are splayed behind him and he's kinda kneeling on his front legs looking right at me. I can't bring myself to use the spear. The blade is about 6 inches long but if I don't hit his heart it's just going to suffer more and besides there's just something creepy about using a blade on something alive. I watched my son-in-law do it once on one of his deer and it wasn't a pretty sight or sound. So I opt to use another arrow. As I reach in my pocket for my bow release, I drop the darn thing in the grass and leaves and can't find it. So I two finger the bow string and sink an arrow through both lungs of the deer.If only that had worked out on the original shot but with him turning like he didand the sapling branches it just wasn't meant to be. It's only a matter of a couple of minutes and the deer is dead. Now I know this sounded like it took a long time, but really from the time of the shot and the deer being dead was only about 20 minutes. I kept hoping the darn thing would die on it's own. Normally after an arrow hit they run off and die and you don't have to sit there and watch them like you do with a spine hit. The DNR won't let you carry a side arm while bow hunting so you can't finish them off that way. What dilemmas us hunters face.
Now the fun begins with field dressing and the drag. It's going to be dark soon so I want to get him at least drug back to my stand about 20 yards away. I'm by myself so the drag was pretty tough because it was a big deer and I had to pull him over several dead falls. After getting the deer back to the trail in back of my stand I go back to get my truck. I’m back in the woods about 100 yards from the dike road but I've cleared the logs away so if I have to I can get my truck down to the stand, and I wasn't about to try and drag that deer 100 yards by myself. There's only one tricky spot and that’s coming down off the dike road and back up, but I put the old truck in 4 low and was able to make it without becoming high centered. Now I had to figure out how I was going to get the deer up in the back of the truck by myself. As I sat on the tail gate resting, I thought about using the two 2-by-4's that I had in the back of the truck as a ramp and try to drag the deer up those. So I went ahead and released the tail gate cables which lowers the tail gate about another two inches. As I mentioned before my stand has an old slough behind it so the stand sits up on about a 3 foot tapered bank which in some places doesn't even exist anymore. Then my brain finally kicks in and I say " Doug, If you drag that deer back up that bank and back the truck up you have a natural loading dock". And it couldn't have been any easier even if I’d had help.
With the deer loaded I’m heading home at around 1900 feeling quite satisfied with the hunt and the harvest. After pictures I go ahead and hang and skin the deer. I’ll go ahead and cut it up in the morning and take the quarters to the butcher in Minden. He does a lot better job at cutting up the steaks off the hind quarter than I do and besides I’ve already butchered three deer and I’m getting tired of cleaning meat off the bone.

Nice buck! I also hate to see one suffer but thats the way it goes sometimes. How much did he weigh?

Nice Buck!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats on the nice buck. I am glad you opted against the spear idea though because that sounded just a little to creepy for me unless you are a hunter from the Zulu tribe. Them fellas are good with them spears. I live just north of Council Bluffs in Monona County, no deer for me but I have gotten a oak tree already this year. My wife won't let me put it on the wall though, what a party pooper. Once again Nice Buck. Did you get him down by the Bluffs????

Congrats on a great buck!

Good deer. Next time, just shoot it again. Arrows don't cost THAT much!

That's an awesome deer man,but hey you gotta understand, using another for a humane kill is something you have to do. Don't ever think about you'll be wasting an arrow. You have to do it because it is the right thing to do. I've shot a few deer in the spine, and know what you're talking about. But you immediately have to follow up with the lung shots until it's quickly dispatched. Awesome buck though, and I'm happy everything worked out.

Very nice!!! Good job on being humane and helping him expire a little faster.