This past weekend made for a great weekend of hunting even though it was in the 90's. I settled into my spot under a feed tree that was what Mr. Warren Wommack and RC would call a "hot" tree. There was a lot of deer sign under this tree, dropping, acorns, tracks, and it was all very fresh.
I got in the stand around 3:30 and had a little over a 3 hour sit between me and dark. At about 4:45, I hear something walking through the water. I spot 4 does walking straight towards me through a slough, I slowly stand and get as close to the tree as I can to be sure I wasn't picked off. Well, they didn't read the script and all 4 went behind me. I could have managed to get a shot at one, but something just didn't feel right about it, and I had a good hunch that something was going to come into this feed tree.
At around 530 I hear something else coming through the water, another two does, these were slightly farther away though and didn't offer any opportunities. Immediately, I hear some more running in the water and this small nubbing buck comes running by grunting like he was the big man on campus. He gave me the best shot opportunity up to this point, and it wasn't one I was very comfortable with, so I gave him a pass as well. Either way, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I begin to hear some walking in the water, but it was coming from a different direction this time. I look up and see a small racked buck headed my way. I knew with the way he was walking he was either coming into the tree or going to skirt right by me at about 15 yards. Either of those choices and I would get a shot opportunity.
Well, he comes right into the acorns. My heart is pounding, i'm trying to be as still as possible, trying to remind myself of what to do, etc. He meanders around for some 10 or so minutes and finally presents me a shot slightly quartering away. I draw, pick a spot and smoke that spot. The deer takes off back where he came, I hear him run for close to 15 seconds in the water and then hear him hit dry land. I was kind of shocked he had made it that far. I never heard him crash and was trying to replay the shot in my mind. I began to think it was slightly back. I backed out and came back about 4 hours later with a few friends to help with the drag. Well, we couldn't find a thing after the water. I managed to track the deer about 100 yards in the water, but then couldn't find anything. I got out on dry land and started searching for some sign of a deer coming through, blood, tracks, anything. I kept checking my gps to see the direction I remembered him going. I searched for over an hour and finally found blood. We then tracked him all the way to a bayou of water some 3/4 miles away. At this point it was 12:30am, which was 6 hours after the shot. Up until this point, all the blood has been dry. When I get to the edge of the bayou I find a single droplet of blood that was completely wet. not even the edges were dry. It threw me off. I showed the guys with me and we all came to the conclusion that the deer must still be alive, so I decided to back out. When I got back there in the AM, the deer was dead 30 yards from where we lost blood going into the slough. The problem was it was so thick where he entered the water we couldn't see anything. Had I walked some 20 yards north, I would have shined right on the deer.
After finding the animal, I couldn't help but feel disgusted. Disgusted he was right there. Disgusted that I didn't execute a more ethical shot, etc.
Hind sight, I should have paid more attention to how much he was quartering away. If I had, the shot would have been much better. I also made some very rookie mistakes. This was my largest buck with a bow and the second largest deer I have ever killed. I wish I had found him sooner to salvage the meat.
**I will post the pictures when I get home, the server here blocks imgur pictures, Or, if someone will post them for me, I will email or text them to you.**
Topic: The small details that I missed (Read 1118 times)
