Thanks for the congratulations and kind words, guys. Luckily, the deer dressed about 105 lbs, so the pack out was achievable. We were operating under the belief that animals had to be packed out whole per the hunt regs, otherwise we would have quartered him out there and shared the weight. As it was, I was thankful to have to strain a little to get this deer out. He deserved my best..
Here's the story. My brother and I have matured into a formidable hunting duo. But it wasn't always that way. Growing up in Texas, we hunted corn feeders, and I believe that hunting corn feeders stunts one's growth as a hunter. But as we've become 100% trad hunters, we've found that the WAY we most want to hunt is changing too. We've hunted elk the last 4 years, finally getting our first two bulls this September. Through it all, a gradual change has taken root, and now, rather than longing to be sitting in a stand waiting, we long to be out walking, slowly, silently, with bow in hand. That's exactly what we did on this trip. And of that, Mike is certainly more disciplined than I.
So, on the third day of this nilgai hunt, it turned cold and wet. We knew the deer would be up and moving, and that it was a perfect morning to rattle. We planned to spend the first few hours rattling then hunt nilgai the rest of the day. We rode our bikes about 4 miles in, and rattled 3 times off the dirt road we rode in on. Nothing happened, so we left the road and the thick brush and headed out into the open country.
I immediately saw a big pig out in the open, and headed out to try to cut him off with the wind right. That effort culminated in a failed attempt which included me running full speed trying to cut off the pig (also running full speed) after I'd been busted. Mike enjoyed the spectacle through his binos back at our packs. He came to meet me afterwards carrying both of our packs and we made a plan.
There was a big brush "island" about 1/4 mile from where my pig stalk ended, and we decided to go walk around it, get the wind right, and rattle a few times. Then, we would head north with the wind in our face in the open stuff looking for nilgai. As we approached the island, we started to notice more deer tracks than we'd seen in most other places we'd been. I wanted to hurry up and get to a place where the wind would be right and start rattling, but Mike was walking annoyingly slow, and I kept having to wait for him to catch up. Eventually we made it to a point where the edge of the "island" went in a bit and was pretty open. So we decided to go in there rather than bushwacking through the brush.
We snuck in about 100 yards and set up with the wind at our backs. We knew a deer would come in from downwind if one came in at all. Mike was on a small stool under a little mesquite about 25 yards from me, and I was standing up in a little nook of a larger mesquite bush. He hit his grunt tube a few times then started to rattle. He rattled for about 30 seconds then stopped. When he stopped I glanced over my right shoulder to make sure nothing was upwind of us, and there, 20 yards away was the most beautiful white - horned, black-headed 9 point my eyes had ever beheld thrashing a low hanging mesquite branch.
I never heard one thing as he approached. I just glanced upwind and like a scene from a Mike Biggs book, there he was. I slowly turned to face him as he continued to rub his head on the branch. Then, Mike tinkled the horns together very softly. At that, the deer looked his way and started towards him, stiff legged and licking his nose. At that moment, I realized I was going to get a once-in-a lifetime shot. To rattle in a buck on public land in Texas and kill him with a longbow with your brother 25 yards away watching the scene unfold, is something I immediately recognized might never happen again. With that, the pressure immediately mounted and in my head I heard myself saying, "You're gonna miss, you're gonna miss. Matt, you can't miss because you won't be able to handle it if you do."
I guess that's a snapshot into the slightly manic personality my brother likes to joke that I suffer from. Strange as that is, that's what I thought as the buck came out from behind the mesquite he was behind. As he walked toward my brother, my bow was up and I had tension on the string. He was almost broadside but quartered slightly to me. I wanted him to stop before I shot but was afraid to try to stop him as he was so close and I was relatively unhidden. As he approached a bush that would have blocked my shot, I drew my bow. He took two more steps, I focused low on his shoulder, and let it go. It was just under 20 yards.
When I released, he was only about 8 yards from my brother. My arrow hit with a loud "whack", and he jumped, spun, and started crashing away down on his front side. I saw the arrow sticking out of both sides, and the deer nearly doing flips as he tried to retreat through the bunch grass, and I knew he was smoked. At that point, I dropped my bow, ran and speared my brother like a free safety. Count is now twice that I've done that from excitement this most blessed of hunting seasons (September elk hunt). After regaining a small semblance of composure, we looked up expecting to see the deer in the final seconds of his life 20 yards from us, and instead saw him making ground 75 yards away, and looking anything but dead on his feet.
In hindsight, we sort of panicked here, and immediately started running after the deer. I remember saying "Dude, my shot must have been bad!" as we started running through the open meadow of bunch grass. Mike had his bow as I'd dropped mine back where I'd shot the deer, and promptly proceeded to trip and fall. Mid-fall though, he hands his bow out to me as I run by him, we effectively execute a baton transfer, and I keep running. I lose the deer as he rounds a bend, and I stop in the spot I'd last seen him to catch my breath. Mike made it to me about then, and we racked our brains as to what had happened as we both thought the shot was perfect.
Then, at 35 yards we see movement and it's the deer's horns and we can tell that his head is up and he's bedded. We then start debating what to do. Do we back out and let him expire? Wouldn't he have already been dead if the shot was where we thought it was? Clearly the shot wasn't where we thought, so should we try to get another arrow in him? We decided that Mike would sneak back to get my bow and I would stay there with his bow in case the deer got up. After Mike had been gone about 5 minutes, the deer tried to get up and then went back down. So, when Mike got back with my bow, I knew he was hurt bad, and we decided to get another arrow in him rather than back out and let him suffer anymore.
We started easing up to him and he slowly got up, made it a few feet, and bedded again. We eased up further to get a clear shot, and once I had it, I promptly shot and missed. I nocked another, and shot him just under the spine. He just wore it but I knew it still wasn't a killing shot, so I nocked a final arrow and put it through his lungs. He was broadside and bedded when I shot. When the arrow struck, he jumped up and stood. He then slowly turned and FACED me. He was 10 yards away. I stared back for a second then stepped to the side thinking he might come at me. I've never been scared by a whitetail deer, and I can't say I was scared in this moment. But, I respected him enough to decide that if he was gonna come, I needed to not stand directly in his path.
After a second or two of staring me down, he wobbled and fell foreword, dead. He died like a wild Apache indian might have in this same rough country 200 years before. We approached him and sat down next to him in the grass. After soaking it all in for a moment, I started to pray. We praised God for His kindness that he would bless my brother and I with such an unforgettable morning. We thanked him for the deer, its life, and for how we were and will continue to be blessed by its death. An all-powerful and sovereign God chose to bless us on that morning and in that way. Man was it sweet...
Now the pack out was a different story. As I think I'm setting a Tradgang record for most words written in a single post, I'll let the pictures Mike posted speak for themselves!
As for the first shot. We examined and found that my arrow hit low and a few inches forward of what would have been a perfect heart shot. It came out in the middle of the off shoulder, actually a good bit higher than the in-hole. It had passed through the very front of the chest cavity cutting a main artery leading to the heart, and putting a cut in the frontal lobe of the offside lung. It was certainly a killing shot, and the deer would have been dead within 30 minutes I'm sure. As I waited for Mike to get back with my bow, I could see his head swaying like he was falling asleep. I hate that it was less than a perfectly clean kill, but am glad we decided to get another arrow into him to finish it rather than let it draw out any longer. Thank you guys for reading, and providing a venue for a hunter to pour out his heart's excitement over a great kill!
Topic: South Texas 9 pt - story added on pg. 2 (Read 1885 times)
