Here is an update of the second weekend of my season. I was hunting with my nephews Dan and Dave (and Dave's father-in-law Mike) again on a different property. Walking in we bust a bunch of turkeys on roost and they make a terrible racket as they leave. Dave drops me off at a stand that he had just set a few days before and heads off for a blind a few hundred yards farther. Around 8:30 I have several turkeys all around me but I hadn't bought a turkey tag this fall. :mad: About an hour later two yearlings make their way towards me and bed down about 15 yards away without giving me a good shot. My nephews had other commitments around noon and were planning on trying to move some deer as they made their way out of the woods, so I just planned on waiting till they were to leave and see if they would stand up and present a shot. I had an antlerless tag in my pocket and due to family and work, it had been about 10 years since I have taken a deer with a bow. So with my re-commitment to bowhunting this year I planned on taking the first good shot presented to "get my feet wet" again. As I am watching the yearlings, they suddenly become alert and take off in a direction that I don't have a shot. A few seconds later my Dan comes up behind my stand and starts stomping like a deer.
I start wispering to him about the deer and as I am putting my arrow back in my quiver and preparing to lower my bow to the ground, I notice another yearling walking towards us. I motion to Dan that another deer is coming while I try to get an arrow nocked. He sees they deer and starts blowing his grunt call. This keeps the deers attention on him while I get an arrow on the string and get ready. She hangs up about 25 yards out and is trying to see what is grunting. She starts to circle around us to get down wind and I come to full draw just as she stops with her vitals covered by a limb so I have to let down. From Dan's angle she looks to be in the open and he cannot figure out why I don't shoot. A minute or so later she starts walking again and I draw and shoot as she comes out from behind the limb and I drill her right behind the shoulder. Dan is pumping his arms and trying to control himself as she runs off and we hear her crash into a piece of sheet metal (left over from a tornado several years ago). I look down to see Dan rolling on the ground from his excitment. As we are discussing what had just happened, Mike comes walking up. He was just a few yards behind Dan and I had not seen him, but he had also watched me shoot the deer. Dave heard the crash from his blind and sent me a text thinking that I might have fell out of my stand (these younger bucks think that this old guy is a clutz I guess
). So the first deer I shoot in years is in front of two witnesses. Sure glad I made a good shot! She isn't a big deer, but we have a story that we will all remember for a long time and I got some confidence for if/when that big buck comes by. In fact she was small enough that this is how I got her out of the woods. Dan said that this was my good side...
Topic: A good day (Read 510 times)
