HuntingNet.com Forums - 8 Point Kentucky Buck

After hours of studying for my Calculus test Tuesday night, I decided I needed to let off a little steam so I figured I would go hunting Wednesday morning to help me relax a little bit and release a little stress from all this studying before my test.

Well, I get up about 4:45 Wednesday morning and load all my stuff up and drive out to where I hunt. Sunrise is at about 6:30 so I pull in and start to unload around 5:30 or so. I gather everything up, hop on the four-wheeler, and head out to where I plan on setting up the blind. As I begin driving up a small trail into a field, this buck and a doe run 15 yards from me through the 4-wheelers headlights. I got a good look at the rack and knew it was a pretty good deer, but I thought he was gone for sure. It didn't act too spooked though so I thought maybe I would see it again later that day.

Well, I continue driving up the field and at the very top of the hill I see the doe. I wait a few seconds and check things out, and then see the bucks rack moving across the top of the hill as well. I couldn't see his body, just the rack. I decided I would ease my way up the hill until I could see the deer's body, and then hopefully he would stick around long enough for me to be able to get a shot. Well after about 20 minutes of watching this deer strut on top of the hill, the sun started to rise and I could see him through my scope. Right around 6:30, I took about a 70 yard shot and nailed him! He jumped about 4 feet in the air, stumbled on his landing, and took off running over the hill. I knew by his reaction that I had hurt him bad and that he wouldn't make it far. I listened to him run off, and heard him go into the woods. A couple seconds later I hear a huge crash! That was it! He's gotta be down!

So I wait about 30 minutes and give the deer time to bed down and die. After the longest 30 minutes of my life, I go up to find where he was standing and look for a blood trail. When I arrive at where he was standing, I found absolutely NOTHING!!! I searched around for about two hours and never found one spec of blood or hair or anything.:s7:... If this has never happened to you, it's the worst feeling in the world knowing you killed a deer but can't find it.

Anyways, now it's time for my calculus test so I had to leave, but needless to say the morning's events hadn't allowed me to relax in any way whatsoever. So I take this calc test, the whole time just thinking where my deer could have gone and why I can't find any blood. To make a long story short, it's not looking good for the calc test haha.

As soon as I finished, I skipped my next class to go back and look for the deer. This time I brought a buddy along, and we searched for another hour and a half to no avail. At this point I was completely bewildered. I knew I put a good shot on him and he couldn't have gone far, but still no blood or any sign at all.

I continue to just circle through the woods. After about two hours of searching, I start wading through some grass that is about chest high. As I stare intently at the blades of grass, just looking for blood, I notice a large downed tree over to my left. Just out of pure desperation, I walk over to the tree hoping that the crash I heard was him tripping of this tree. As I walk up to it, still nothing. No sign of the buck whatsoever. At this point I'm on the verge of giving up. I had searched for about 5 hours and had nothing to show for it, not a drop of blood or hair or anything. :violin:

Out of pure boredom and disappointment, I climb up on top of the tree and walk down it's trunk towards the end where the branches and leaves are. Then I noticed something a little strange. Down in the midst of the dead brown leaves, there was tannish colored spike sticking up. Could this be it??? I damn near sprinted the rest of the way down the tree and pulled the branches apart. Whalah!!! There he laid!!!! FINALLY, I had found him. He must have stumbled when jumping the tree and landed there in the branches. Then, as he laid there, he somehow worked his way down underneath the branches so that all that was sticking up was one of his antlers.

To conclude my story, here is a pic of my unbelievably difficult 8 pointer. He's no monster, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Even after the finding the deer, I couldn't find a drop of blood anywhere that would have indicated his path, except of course where he laid and died. After examining the deer, I had made a perfect shot. Basically destroyed both of it's lungs. I still can't figure out why it didn't bleed but oh well. What's funny about the story though, is that the deer only made it about 25 or 30 yards from where I shot it, but was buried so far under that tree that it had just been overlooked the whole time. Anyways, sorry for such a long story. It's just that words can't hardly describe the strange sequence of events that happened that morning. After what seemed like the easiest hunt of my life, seeing the deer and taking a shot without ever even making it to the blind, it turned into a huge ordeal. Needless to say, I was very happy to finally get my hands on that thing. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think!