Seemed like déjà vu of last year’s Midwest Trip but the differences were 1) it wasn’t nearly as exhausting on the first day and 2) this was so much more gratifying having done it with a trad bow! We loaded up the truck and headed North at @ 8:00 pm Wednesday night looking to get there Thursday and hit the woods hard scouting for a week of bow hunting. I decided I was going to make this (for me anyways) a Trad Bow ONLY adventure! In the words of one of my good friends it was going to be a “Trad Kill or No Kill”! I didn’t even pack a compound with me. After scouting hard all day it was time to pick a spot and hunt! I decided to walk into a little block of woods that seemed to be a transition area to a huge green field and sit for the first evening hunt. There were beat down trails, scrapes, rubs, etc. All sign said hunt here! I grabbed my Tree Stick and Millennium seat and found a nice spot to hunker down on the ground. I stood up for the last hour of the hunt. Not long after I stood up I turned around and was looking at a HUGE doe that was about 10 yards behind me so I froze. She began feeding into the field and I only had a small opening so at 20 yards I sent one her way! Hit a limb, clean miss but she only went about 10-15 yards further and stopped so I stepped to the side of the tree I was leaning on and sent one her way! This one connected and after a short track and finishing shot I was looking down on my first ever deer taken with a traditional bow and done so on her level, the ground! I was excited and you wouldn’t know I’d been up for 38+ hours!! She was a huge ol girl weighing @ 170 or so!!
My friend Jay was with me on the recovery. Blood was very easy to follow as she was bleeding very well. After getting out of the rose bushes and into the CRP we jumped her up but she didn’t go far. Like a complete idiot I didn’t bring along my bow for the recovery. I bulldozed my way back to the truck through the thorns cutting my face pretty good doing so and retrieved my bow. I was so excited that I completely missed the first follow up shot! After composing myself and putting the finishing shot through her the celebration began. I just collected my first Trad Deer Kill! Glad to have Jay there to be a part of it with me! That is a moment I’ll always remember!
Topic: First Trad Deer taken with Acadian Woods Tree Stick (Read 469 times)
