I am guilty of not posting much so I figured I tell the story of my first deer from the ground.
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend an annual group hunt in Louisiana that my buddy Daniel from HCB strings host every year.
Arrived on Thursday and got in an afternoon hunt. Heard some hogs and saw one deer from a distance.
Friday morning Daniel and I took his 4wheeler and drove in several miles and bumped some hogs from the trial. I got off and pursued them but never caught up to them. So I worked my way towards a slough that was about a 1/2 mile away and decided to set up for deer for the afternoon. I followed a long finger of water off the slough and found a beaver damn that had tons of fresh deer and hog tracks on it. There weren’t any good trees to set up in directly over it so I had to back off about 30 yrds and I climbed the first good tree that worked for the wind direction.
I had been watching a squirrel for about and hour and around 3:40 it all of a sudden ran off. When it did I immediately heard something large running my way and look behind me and the largest doe I’ve ever seen in the south was running directly at me. I assume she was headed to this crossing when she spooked the squirrel and in turn it spooked her. She ran by me at about 17-18 yrds and stopped just before the beaver damn. She looked around and then proceeded to walk across the damn and out of my life! That’s my luck, hunt ruined by a dang squirrel!
Saturday morning we had some weather come in that brought rain and high winds. Perfect for stalking!!
I headed to a new area and began slipping through the woods. About 1/4 mile in I find some hogs that are angling towards me but I have to angle towards them to keep them from getting down wind. I get to within 20 yrds when the lead sow (about 125 lbs) turns and starts walking towards me, perfect!! She goes behind a big oak and as she steps out I am already drawing my bow. All she has to do is clear the tree when I feel the wind hit me in the back of the head. Game over! One grunt and they all scatter!! Dang it! I tried to follow but never saw them again.
So I head back to the 4wheeler and go to a complete different area. After a 3 mile loop with zero fresh tracks or sign I load up and head to my 3 rd spot for the day. It’s getting late so I decided to just try to find a place to set for deer for the evening . I head back to the spot I went the first afternoon but when I got there someone else was already parked there. Plan B! I drove about another half mile and parked the 4wheeler on the side of the rd. The road made a circle all the way back to the main road and There was a drainage ditch that followed the road. I figured that it was unlikely that anyone would cross it and hunt the small area inside the circle.
It’s getting late so I quickly found a place to cross and got on the ridge on the other side. I found a good deadfall to tuck in and with only about an hour and half left of daylight I wasn’t confident I’d see anything but better than sitting at camp!
About 45 minutes before dark I suddenly catch movement on my left side up wind. At first I thought it was a hog because it had a red color and was pretty small. I was surprised to see it was actually a small buck and he was feeding my way!
He was so comfortable he was just feeding along with the wind and not a care in the world! If he had continued the way he was going he would end up 15 yrds broadside. But instead he changed directions and started walking to my left to go around the deadfall. My wind stays true and as he goes behind some small trees I come to full draw. 18 yrds broadside! And brother when I say I made a perfect shot I mean it was like heaven and earth stood still! I swear the clouds even parted and a ray of sunlight shone down on my deer and a heavenly host of angles began singing! I smiled as I saw my deadly arrow headed towards its intended target! When suddenly everything sped up! All of a sudden my Buck was no longer standing there. Instead he was stretched out with his belly touching the ground and it was like he froze there for a split second as my arrow passed harmlessly over his back! I was completely dumbfounded!
I’ve had deer drop before but never like this! It was like he was straight outta the matrix or something!!
He runs about 40 yrds off and stands there looking around as dumbfounded as I was. Then he simply walks off and outta my life!
I was to blown away to be upset! I did everything right, he was just righter! (If there is such a word lol)
So I waited till dark and retrieved my arrow. I also marked the spot on my maps and made a promise to him that I’d be back for round 2 at a later time!!
Not sure if I can swing it or not yet but gonna try to go back before season ends in a couple weeks.
To be continued.......
Topic: My first deer from the ground (Read 899 times)
