Got some catching up to do. These are from a couple weeks ago. Pics have been resized on Photobucket. I guess there's a delay.
Monday, 10/17/2011 Started coming down with a bad head cold yesterday afternoon while I was at work. By the time I got home, it was giving me fits. I doped up on OTC cold medicine and went to bed. I did set my clock though, just to get up and see if I felt like hunting. When I woke up, I didn’t feel like getting out of the bed, much less sitting in a tree for 3+ hours. Made myself get up and go anyway. I figured I’d tough it out, and I could rest for the remainder of the day.
It was barely light enough for me to shoot when I got into the tree. I settled back against the tree and half-heartedly waited for some action. Time and again, this branch has proven to be a late morning spot, with most of my deer sightings coming between 9 and 10 o’clock. I had to fight the urge to close my eyes, as each time I did, they’d seem to weld themselves shut.
Nothing much was happening. At 7:42, I heard a slight rustle in the leaves coming from behind me, to the right. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw a deer gliding through the trees about 35 yards out. About the time I saw it, it stopped behind some brush with only its hind end showing. More footsteps followed behind it. I dared not move for fear of being picked off. Suddenly the lead deer turned around and trotted back toward the others. It was then that I saw the antlers. This was the big buck that I had seen on my trail camera a couple weeks ago. The width of his spread was immediately apparent. He seemed to almost bluff-charge the other deer, as if he were trying to run them off. I never did get a clear view of the other two deer, but they appeared to be does. After the deer ran up the hill and out of the branch, the big buck turned and continued on his original heading. I watched him melt away. Here's his TC picture.
For nearly two hours, nothing else showed. Then, at 9:36, I glimpsed a deer move through a beam of sunlight about 75 yards away. It slowly moved off in the same direction the buck had taken. Ten minutes later, squirrels began to bark just up the branch from me. I began to focus most of my attention in that direction. Directly, I saw movement. It took a few seconds for me to piece together the form of a deer, and then another, coming towards me. This branch is very thick. With the longest shot possible being at 15 yards, they were going to have to get close.
Since this was primetime, I was already standing . All I had to do was shift my feet into position on the stand. When the deer nearest me stepped into an opening at 10 yards, I brought the 63# pounds of death back to my cheek. As I began to draw she was broadside, but as I reached anchor she turned quartering slightly toward me. I shifted my focus further up on the shoulder, so as to avoid getting an exit wound through gut. When I released, all heck broke loose.
I heard a loud crack as the arrow impacted bone, and saw about 10 inches of my arrow still protruding from the near side of the deer. She went down immediately, then just as suddenly she regained her feet and started to run. After 3 yards, she managed to break my arrow against a sapling. She continued to stumble and crash for another 15 yards before cutting a front flip and going down for good. From the tree, I could see the entrance wound the TreeShark had made. I could stick my hand in it.
I glanced at my watch. It was 9:50. I decided to come on down and pull my stand since I was planning on hunting at Horse Creek a couple days this week. I lowered my bow, then swung off on the side of the tree and unstrapped my stand. After putting it on my back, I climbed down, removing my bolts as I went. When I was a couple bolts from the ground, I heard a deer blow, and glanced up to see a deer bounding off. I knew it was the second deer, which had ran off at the shot, slipping back in to see what had happened. I didn’t think too much of it.
I hit the dirt, and as I pulled the last of my bolts and was sticking them in my pocket, I looked up and saw the deer coming back toward me. It could see me, but because this branch is so thick, I guess it couldn’t quite make me out. She got to about 30 yards, and then turned and hopped off again. When she did, I scooped my bow up and slid around behind the trunk of the oak that I had been up. I went down on one knee, dug my tab out of my pocket, removed the pull-up cord from my bow, and nocked an arrow.
As I peeked out around the tree, I saw the deer was once again coming toward me. And once again, when she got to about 30 yards, she would turn and bound off. She repeated this sequence several more times before circling around to my left. When she cleared the trunk of the oak I was behind, I was now fully exposed. She looked directly at me, and began stomping her foot. I thought she was about to cut and run, so I decided to try something. I bleated with my mouth, trying to call her in closer. She fell for it.
She got to about 25 yards, but was head-on to me. She was looking straight at me, and knew something wasn’t quite right. She turned, to my right, and started walking broadside to me. When her head went behind a large oak, I started to draw. Just as she cleared it, she hit a hole through the trees. I bleated once more, and she stopped perfectly in the opening. I knew she would most likely spin away from me at the shot, but couldn’t make myself aim farther back in anticipation of it. I settled on a spot right behind the shoulder and released.
In a blur, I saw the arrow streaking toward the doe, and her spinning away from it. I heard it impact her, and she was away. She covered 10 yards or so, and then suddenly went down. I watched for just a minute to make sure she was done, then walked slowly over to her. As she had spun, the arrow just missed her shoulder and caught her in the neck. Almost took her head off. I’m not certain, but I think that the broadhead had severed so much of the muscle that there was no longer support for the weight of the head. The act of running had broken her neck.
First deer
Second
Topic: Numbers 4 and 5 (Read 172 times)
