Well we shot a bunch during the mid day and talked with our host, Gil. Gil and his brother were getting ready to head out on an elk hunt in Montana and were busy kicking there stuff in a pile.
Rusty was working on getting some new arrows setup with his bow. I gotta tell ya those metal risers with gadgets sure make tuning easy. I even shot it a few times to get the feel of the sight. Pretty cool.
We talked about the evening hunt and after my report on the am, we decide to hunt the osage and pipeline stands. Rusty was in Osage and I headed for pipeline about 150 yds east. The deer from the morning typically bed east of the pipelin and will follow one of two trails back to the acorns in the evening. The stand I put up in the am (pipeline) is on the bigger of the two trails.
I settled in the ladderstand with just the gillie top on. I really didn't like the pants in the am as they kept falling down. The 60 # I have lost has made my pants want to ride a bit low. LOL
After a few minutes the big fox squirrels came down from the trees and started working the ground. Hmmmm, that's real early I thought. One thing I have noticed is that when the squirrels hit the ground, the deer head for the acorns too.
Then with the sun still real high in the sky, a coon comes trundling along. Another good sign of an early evening. My old knees and hips won't let me stand the whole time like I used too. So I stand for about 45 minutes and sit 10, then repeat. I had just stood up from one of the rest periods, faced the tree and looked right, then left. DEER!! and they are does, five of them. They are working down the trail I'm setup on and already in feed mode. That's good they are calm and not at all on the alert.
If you noticed, I said faced the tree. I read in Jim Hamms book on Hunting whitetail that it was better to use the tree as camo and face the tree to shoot. I have been doing it since with good success.
Anyway the deer are coming with a young doe in the lead. #2 is a lot bigger but I decide that the first one that gives a shot will be my target. They advance slowly trying to pick up every acorn on the forest floor. The first doe, turns and heads my way. There is a large ash tree between her and me and she gives me a broadside just beyound it. No. .a bit too far and it doesn't feel right. She'll come closer. And she does, she works around the tree and comes into the open. That's better!! It's the shot that I've been seeing in my head since I got in the tree. She bends to pick up an acorn and I draw. Burning a hole low in the crease of the shoulder, I release. Arrow looks good and WACK!!. The deer tumps over and lays still. I'm going "what the heck just happened?". As the arrow approached there was a blur of movement by the doe. She looked like she ducked (anticipated that with the low hold) but she also fainted away and caught the arrow in the neck. Anyway she was down. I watched the others for a minute and saw that they were headed back. But when I looked at the doe on the ground, she was still breathing. The heck with the others, I climbed down, closed to 10 yds and put a finish shot through the heart. That's better, no suffering on my watch.
Back in the tree and wait the hour and a half til dark and then go get Rusty. He tells me of his near shots and good time and asked if I saw any. I told him just the ones with the one that I shot.
http://sites.google.com/site/stringwalkerbowhunter/mikedoe108 Here she is with the gillie clad me.
Mike
Topic: doe hunt,, wingnut scores, look before ya leap! (Read 3749 times)
