HuntingNet.com Forums - Success the last 2 Saturdays.....long

Let me start by saying how much I appreciate the landowners generosity for letting me hunt, I know there are many bowhunters out there that are not as fortunate as I. That said, my buddy and I went out Saturday the 19th to one of our spots about 30 miles north and east of where I live. It is a forty acre parcel, all wooded and woods surrounding 3 sides, a road to the south and a cornfield on the other side of the road. The landowner let's us hunt because we agree to harvest does in an attempt to keep the numbers down, a person died a while back on the road bordering this property in a car/deer collision. I took 2 does there last year, my buddy took one.

Saturday, October 19th 3:00 p.m.:
I climbed into my stand with high hopes of filling my management tag. The stand is located between 2 ridges (one big ridgeline and a smaller one) that funnel the deer movement, the valley full of oaks dropping acorns. I had only been on stand for an hour and noticed movement to the southwest, 3 deer (2 does and a forkhorn buck) working their way down the funnel. When the deer got just below me in the valley, the lead doe cut uphill right towards the stand. She worked around to the west and looked back at the other two, I already had the pin on her, she was 14 yards. I squeezed the trigger of the release and she dropped, hit in the spine. She kicked some, so I put another arrow through the boiler room and she was still. We sat till dark, then dragged her up near the road to gut her, nice doe, about 135 lbs dressed.

Saturday, October 26th 2:00 p.m.:
My buddy and I had decided that this would be the last weekend to take does until late season on the properties we hunt due to the rut starting to kick in and the does acting as live decoys. We were hunting the same property as the previous Saturday, the first time back since taking the doe on the 19th. I decided to hunt the top of the big ridgeline and my buddy hunted the stand that I took the doe from. It was very thick on the top of the ridge and with all the thick foliage I had a difficult time locating a tree I had hunted in the past, jumping a bunch of deer in the process. After a fair amount of time and unable to locate the tree I was upset, figuring I had just boogered up my hunting spot. I decided to get out of there and move to a different spot and inadvertently found the tree I was looking for. I put the stand up half-heartedly and got settled in. I was up there for about 45 minutes and was looking to the southwest and noticed the tops of several bushes moving, thinking "that can't be squirrels". It wasn't, a deer was approaching through the thick stuff. I picked up my bow off the hook just before the deer stepped into the open, it ran right into my scent trail and locked up, a nice buck, the side of his rack I could see was a four point side. I decided to take him, I drew back and put the pin on him, held steady for a couple seconds and turned the arrow loose, the hit looked very good. The buck wheeled and crashed through the thick jungle-like brush. He crashed for about 10 seconds, then silence. I listened for any sounds for the next 20 minutes, heard nothing. Our agreement is if a buck is hit, come for the other guy and track in the daylight if possible. I got down and went and got my buddy to help with the tracking job. We walked back to the truck and got out of our camos and went back to look. I climbed into the stand and directed him to the spot the deer was standing, he found a spot torn up where the deer spun to retreat. We followed the trail for about 30 yards with no sign found, then found a few spots of blood. We continued down the trail through the thick brush finding only a few small spots of blood. At that point I turned on my LED headlight and with the white light in the darkening woods, the blood trail became very apperent. We followed it at a walk through the brush for about 60 yards and found him piled up on the trail. He is a half-rack buck would have been an 8 point, a four point side on the right and a brow tine and broken beam on the left, dressed about 150 lbs. My best yet with a bow.

We didn't get any pics of the doe, we forgot the camera that night of course and I don't really like the "hanging from the rafters in the garage" pics, Just doesn't seem to do the deer justice, that's just my opinion. We did get kill site pics of the buck on my buddies digital camera, I'll get them somewhere you can see them as soon as my buddy emails them to me, hopefully within the next day or so. Sorry so long.

Be safe, shoot straight.

MN_BOWHUNTER