After spending Saturday and Sunday at my daughters games I was selfishly wishing I could get home to hunt. My Brother and buddy were sending texts on their Saturday evening hunt progress and it wasn't helping my will to be with my daughter. After the game on Sunday I embarrassed my wife when I drug her to the car as fast as I could in hopes to get back in time to sit a stand I had hung a month ago.
I climbed out of the truck on my buddies farm just down the road, gathered my gear and headed to the stand down a long overgrown field with thin wooded draws separating several long thin fields. Got to the tree undetected and climbed up to notice (and then it hit me) I hung the treestand several feet above my ladder sticks planning to bring two screw in steps with me when i came to hunt it. Of course I had totally forgotten that little plan.
So I gathered the gear and headed back to the truck and drove out of the farm and a mile down the road to my house to grab steps. Made it back to the tree about 5 and climbed back up and aboard my evening perch. Several does and fawns started the evening and one caught of whiff and almost buggered the plan. I knew several good bucks where using my little draw for passage up to the food plots and also had several large acorn trees around me that are just starting to drop and were the reason I hung the stand there.
Around 6:45 a really nice buck and his younger buddy came by perfectly on the upwind side trail. I had several shot opportunity's on them but was holding off as this was my first sit of our long season. They passed by at 15 yards. At 7:30 I noticed another deer coming and it didn't take long for him to snap me into shoot mode. As older deer do he took a few steps at a time and would stand and munch on browse and shake his head trying to ease the suffering of the fly's that surround them this time of year.
When I saw him he was about 70 yards out and it took him about 10 minutes to make it up to me. I am usually pretty cool during this scenario but this deer had the old ticker pumping. Just watching that approach was a site to behold and I'll never forget it. He finally made it to 15 yards slightly quartering to me and I was about to put pressure on the string and then thought I'll wait. The wind that had been perfect and blowing from the deer to me all night had died down the the thermals with the air cooling began to go down the creek and parallel to the deer. At 10 yards I was waiting for one more steps when he snapped his head around and looked up at me. I was sinking fast and knew it. He didn't take but a second or two of that and whirled and began to trot back down the trail the way he had come. I made a low grunt and when he got through the creek on the up slop he stopped and turned around to see what he had smelled.
At 28 yards I am out of my mind for shooting but something down deep took over and before I knew it the arrow was gone. I heard a loud crack noise and the deer took off tail tucked like a scalded dog and at about 80 yard I saw and heard the brush thrashing in one spot for several seconds. With my dark fletchings and the light waning I couldn't see the arrows flight at all. Did I hit him? What was that loud crack noise? Did he get tangled in vines down there and just walk off? The questions started flowing freely through my mind. I text my brother and buddy and I told them I was going to ease out and not going to go back until morning .
Well I woke up at 2:30 am and didn't go back to sleep. Anyone that has been through that knows it is miserable. We met up this morning at 7am and I truly expected to find my arrow stuck in a tree or log dry and unbloody. We walked into the spot and I found where the deer whirled at the shot. Then I found my arrow laying on the ground with the front 4" snapped off and some blood on it!
We instantly found good blood and I was amazed. My brother and I gave each other an awkwardly excited fist bump. We followed a trail of blood that was like anyone hopes for and 60 yards later where I'd seen the bushes thrashing found the deer. My arrow had gone through his lower neck and into his leg bone. Catching the jugular vein he wasn't alive 10 seconds after the shot. I assume at the shot he dipped and spun.
I can't be happier with this deer and the way it all turned out. This is truly the case of a good miss and I thank God for guiding the shaft.
Topic: Kentucky Buck (Read 3886 times)
