My brother always told me not to dip on the stand. I never did believe him. Thursday proved me right. I got on the stand 45 minutes before first light on opening day and hunted until 11:00 without seeing anything except a few tree rats. I got down and scooted to camp to grab some lunch and hustled to my second stand and was back in the trees by 12:30.
It was 5:00 before I saw my only deer of the day. I spotted it about 90 yards out and I got to my feet and got my bow in hand and clipped on the release and waited. It headed straight for me, so I had to hide behind my bow and watch it walk straight to the bottom of my tree. I saw very soon that it was a buck. The closer it got, the more points I could count. As it got to where I'd spit on the ground, it stopped and sniffed for a second or two and then, I kid you not, started licking the leaves I'd been spitting on! This went on for what seemed like five minutes, but was probably only 90 seconds. As I was watching it from directly above, I was counting points. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, .... I counted nine, and finally it turned and continued slowly on it's way... on the other side of the tree. So I had to turn. I did it as smoothly and quietly but as quickly as I dared, mentally praying "please don't see me, please don't see me".
As I got turned around, I saw him 6 yards away with his head down, but quartering pretty hard away. Unbelievable! Not the ideal shot, but I knew if he followed the usual traffic pattern there, he was headed away from me. This is a chance for my first bow buck, so I came to full draw, bent at the waist, settled my top pin (set for 25 yards) two inches low and touched the release. I saw the white wrap and blazers streak home for a perfect shot. In high towards the back of the right rib cage. The exit wound was low just in front of the left leg. He jumped up in the air, double-kicked and hauled it for the next county. Unfortunately for him, 50 yards was as far as he was going. I saw him go down and I almost couldn't believe it. Since I'm colorblind, that's a REAL BONUS.
I gave him a half hour, and when I finally got to him I saw that he was actually a 10 pointer. I had miscounted.
Not a big deer, and it wasn't a big rack, but after two years of never seeing a buck with a bow in my hand, it finally came together and I couldn't be happier.
So, how do you post pics on this "new and improved" forum?
