HuntingNet.com Forums - First buck with a bow (pic included)

As some of you know, I've been deer hunting since I was a boy, but just began bowhunting last year. Last November I killed my first ever deer with a bow- a doe-and that was the beginning of the end- I was hooked.

This past Thursday, I worked until 11:00 a.m., came home, packed up the car and drove with my wife and little girl to Ohio to stay with my cousin and his family for a couple of days and do some bowhunting. My cousin lives about a half hour from Cleveland in a small township called Columbia Station, and he has killed three monster bucks over the past four years, including his most recent 29 point non-typical that netted 192 5/8 inches.

I had never hunted anywhere besides my land in western Maryland, so saying that I was excited to hunt in Ohio would be a bit of an understatement. I stayed in the stand for 11 hours on Friday, and saw five deer. The first was a single deer that came out of the corn field and entered my woods just as it started getting light, but it was about 60 yards away and I was never able to see it clearly. An hour later, I had a nice mature doe and two button bucks walk right under my stand, and then I saw a small spike at 4:15.

Yesterday morning was in the mid 50's when we got up, so due to the high temps I didn't have very high hopes about an over-abundance of deer activity. At 7:30, I saw a deer that had come out of the corn field and was quickly working its way up through the woods about 100 yards from my stand. Knowing that I probably wouldn't have much of a chance to get a look at the deer, I quickly grabbed my grunt tube and grunted four or five times. To my surprise, the deer wheeled around, turned 90 degrees into my direction, and came to me on a string. There I was, scrambling to hang my grunt call back on the tree, get my bow, and snap my release onto the string. I soon saw that although he was no "Ohio monster", he was a buck that I would gladly take as my first with a bow... He continued to walk/trot above me and I found a small hole to shoot through at 30 yards. When he stepped into the lane, I let out a mouth bleat, stopped him, and released my arrow.

30 yard shot, caught his heart and one lung. He ran 20 yards, walked 10, stood still for 10 seconds, and fell over about 50 yards from my stand. I was so pumped up I almost fell out of the tree! He would have been an 8 point, but he was a 6 point due to a broken left beam.

This deer is a trophy to me and he'll never be forgotten.