1st whitetail from the ground

[bohuntr]

While I have taken several muledeer from the ground over the years I have never really tried it with whitetails since treestands are so effective. Anyway this past Saturday I decided to try and shoot a whitetail from a natural groundblind. I had noticed a trail where the deer had been coming out of the timber and in to some CRP. About 15yds to the South of the trail was a nice, thick cedar tree. In the evening the deer usually move from the west to the east and that night there was a good,steady west wind. I basically just took my camo stool and set it up in the bottom branches of the cedar tree. I had to break off a couple of branches to give me a better shooting lane, other than that I did nothing else as far as making any type of blind. I had snow camo pants on and my jacket was a color that roughly blended with the green of the cedar branches. After Jan 1st all of our tags in SD convert to antlerless only which means you can only shoot a deer with no visible antler (which I think is defined further as no antler protruding further than the deers ear). Anyway right in the last couple of minutes of shooting light I could hear a deer walking on the trail towards me. When it first appeared it loooked straight at me, stared for a minute and relaxed and started for the CRP. When it got about 20 yds out it stopped and turned slightly away from me. I hit full draw and released the arrow. I could see it hit tight behind his shoulder right where the heart is located. The deer ran into to the CRP and was down in less than 4 seconds. I was shooting Axis carbons which come in at a little over 600 grains with a 100gr insert and a 185gr Snuffer. The arrow went throught the heart and exited out the offside lung. I never did find the arrow which is odd considering the open terrain and the snow. It seemed like the arrow never even slowed down going through ---- it will be interesting to see if and where I eventually find the arrow. It turns out that the deer was a young buck that had its antlers busted off earlier in the year. You could see the remains of the bases when you got up close but you could tell that they must have been busted quite awhile before by the way they were smooth and weathered. It was quite a thrill to shoot a deer from the ground rather than a tree. I am not going to be giving up my treestands but I am definitely going to do some more ground hunting. Sorry for the bad picture as lighting was bad and I had to use the flash. The hole shown was the exit. This was the 4th deer I took this year with this BigEast bow which I bought earlier this year on the classifieds from Gene Charbonneau.

[tjjsidekick]

Congrats! You've accomplished what I and probably countless others are still trying to do. Great job!

TJ

[LEOPARD]

Congrats!

[Hot Hap]

Congradulations!! Nice story also. Hap

[BMN]

Sweet! Nice job  

[yellow bow]

congrats!

[Lefty]

Great job!!

[kennym]

Most excellent!!      

[Jeff Holchin]

Glad to see there are a few others out there still trying to fill some tags - congratulations!  Looks like the Snuffer did some damage.

[BigRonHuntAlot]

Congrats.  :D

[drewsbow]

congrats :0)

[Flatstick]

Great accomplishment! Congrats      

[Three Arrows]

Congrats on the fine shot!  Probably got more excitement shooting one from the ground over a treestand huh?

[joe skipp]

Go get em Groundpounder....nice going      

[sgrogg]

congrats!!!!!!!!

[Squirrel Bait]

Way to go Groundpounder, felt good didn't it!

[One eye]

Great job!  I love hunting on the ground, and I have switched almost 100% to ground hunting.

I get more satisfaction from shooting a doe from the ground than the P&Y class bucks I have taken from the trees.

Dan

[Horne Shooter]

Great stuff.  Looks cold though!

[woodchucker]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!  

[fishmerf]

Well done!