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my first trad kill --- pictures

I hunted western Kansas with a friend over the weekend. I had scheduled the whole week off. Anyway, I hung two stands on Sat evening after driving all night, and sat in one but only saw a small fork horn and a doe. Sunday morning was 36 degrees and misting rain. I sat until about 10 am and saw nothing on the same stand I had sat Sat evening. We went back to his house, dried off and I caught 3 hours of sleep. We got up, and decided to hunt the other place.

As I was walking in I saw does being chased by bucks on the other side of the creek. My stand was in a creek bottom between two alfalfa field. There were trails going field to field, and up and down the creek as well and I put a stand in a tree overlooking the intersection. There were scrapes all along those trails, one about 5 yards from my tree. Anyway, got in my stand and about 15 minutes I had 2 bucks coming in. One was an 8 point, just a nice deer, nothing big. This is my second year with a longbow, and honestly I was desperate to prove I could actually do it. I had to stand, rotate all the way to my right and try for a shot. Well, got 3/4 draw and my top limb got hung in some limbs ! I let down, and drew again and released. Well, I shouldn' t have, because after botching the first draw my concentration was shot. Over the back the arrow went and away went the deer.

So I sat longer, questioning again whether I could actually kill a deer with a longbow, and before long some does bedded behind me - hmmmmmm, live bait ! About 20 minutes later and I heard them explode out of their beds - a buck had showed up and he was frisky. He chased them for a few minutes and they left up creek from me. Funny thing, he didn' t follow, he started working the scrape line. In a few minutes he was 18 steps from my tree. I wanted him to take a few more steps but he stopped broadside and looked away. I remember concentrating on his shoulder, but don' t remember drawing or releasing. I must have hit my sleeve of a small twig because my arrow did a bit of a porpoise before it hit. Great hit, but I had quite a bit of fletching sticking out. He ran about 60 yards and piled up - maybe 8-10 seconds after the hit. I was thinking maybe a single lung hit but DANG ! I gave it 20 minutes and went to him. I punched through both sides, cutting ribs in and out. As he ran the arrow pulled back into the body cavity. I got pics if ya' ll want to see the damage done - incredible @!

He' s 11 points, 6x5, 17" inside and 20" main beams or so. I put a real quick tape to him and got about 135" or so. His body was maybe 250 pounds live weight - BIG whitetail. Here he is, my first trad kill and what I consider my greatest trophy yet. No telling how many hours I' ve practiced in my backyard, finally all paid off.

I use a 3 piece TD OL Adcock longbow, 64" , 52# @ 28" draw. The arrows were 29 1/2" Beman ICS 500' s, I used a Thunderhead 125 grain head. Total arrow weight was about 425 grains.

Too dark to take field photos ... sorry for the bloody tongue too ! I was more concerned with getting him gutted and skinned ...