Hunting the wiley dink buck...or how I killed the smallest buck of the year

[wooddamon1]

 

[kennym]

You gotta watch those locals up here , man!! Every big fish comes from the city lake.....

And yes I'm hangin with you to the end bud!

[Charlie Lamb]

Yep, a perfectly shot arrow. It left the bow without a flutter streaking toward the doe. Remember the limb I had to shoot under? I will for the rest of my life. That perfectly shot arrow clipped the underside of the limb causing it to drive deep into the dark soil at the deer's feet. It was enough to send all three deer  hightailing it over the hill.

I spent more time in trees than I had in years. I just couldn't get enough of it. As a retired man I could spend as much time hunting as I wanted and I'd head up to the club for ten days at a time, coming home long enough between hunts to take care business and the honey do's that we all have.  I'd wash my clothes, pack up and be gone again.

Andy was up there a lot as well. Not quite as much as I was but quite a bit just the same. His spot that he had so smuggly coveted was dead as a hammer. He was seeing nothing at all. I tried to coax him to try another spot but he was afraid he'd offend the farmer that gave him permission. That and he was confident if the farmer said it was a good spot that it must be.

After all wasn't there an elevated stand on the edge of the field as you entered the property 300 yards from the woods edge? Didn't they often kill deer from that stand with rifles? Nope, the farmer knew about deer hunting and that was good enough for my buddy. He'd stick it out.
He has yet to learn that even a savvy old farmer who kills deer with a rifle doesn't know what it takes to kill a deer with a simple bow and arrow. I've made a few "gentle" suggestions but they've mainly gone unheeded.

With the arrival of duck season Andy spent less and less time in the deer woods. I was starting to see a pattern but I let it slide. That's his business. Hell, duck season was the reason I'd started deer hunting as a young man. Where we duck hunted the ducks were few and far between. We did however see deer on a regular basis. In my crystal clear teenage mind I figured if I was going to freeze my ass off hunting I'd do it out in the woods chasing deer. I never looked back. To each his own.

Anyway fall came and went. The leaves seemed slow to drop this year and I'm not sure why. Maybe the weather or maybe just the way it is. October melted into November and I was having a hard time finding rut sign. The occasional rub here and there and every now and then a scrape. Nothing like last year though.

I saw a buck now and then. They were mostly out of range and uninterested in any grunts and rattling coming from my direction. Even the does got hard to see. At times I sat for days without seeing so much as a deer hair. It didn't seem to matter which of my "primo" stands I sat it was all dead.

It did seem that I was seeing more racoons than I had ever seen anywhere. On one stand I'd see two or three every evening always separate and always following the same route. I was tempted to knock off a couple but the thought of the commotion it would make kept my fingers off the bowstring. I planned to get after them once the deer season closed.

The firearms season came and went and is my habit I stayed close to home while it was open. It's one of my hang ups and I just don't trust all the idiots with rifles running around the woods. I have several friends from around the country who have been shot while hunting. Nope, not me. Besides, I hate
blaze orange and detest wearing it.

December came and the weather was much more pleasant than it had been the previous year. As I age I find that it's easier to stay in bed on mornings when the mercury is hovering in the single digits. Call me what you will. I fell back into my routine of spending long spells at the club.

Nothing much had changed. The deer were scarce but I kept at it.

 






 

[KyStickbow]

Great job Charlie! I’m in for the rest of the story.

Would love to see the bows you built as well!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

 

[RJonesRCRV]

Ready for more

Sent from my VS835 using Tapatalk

[Bisch]

Just got caught up, and waiting for more!

Bisch


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[arrow30]

c mon I'm getting old n grey......wait a minute, I'm already old and grey...

[Charlie Lamb]

The hunting was as slow as molasses and it confused me to pieces. Over the years I've been hunting this state I'd come to expect things to slow down after the firearms season. As a matter of fact I've killed precious few deer afterwards.

One of my new friends in town had pointed me toward an area that was archery only. It should have been loaded with deer. I saw less there than anywhere. I kept at it anyway... what else was there to do.

I switched over to hunting the stand that had treated me so well last year. From time to time I'd see deer at a distance, moving in random patterns that slowly (very slowly) started to mean something. Let's just say that I'm not as fast on the uptake as Gene and Barry Wensel. About all I've got going for me is patience. Sooner or later things start to make sense.

As a matter of fact, I figure that the first year in a new spot will mostly be about learning unless I just happen to fall into something. The second year is usually much better from a game getting standpoint but still weighted more toward the learning than the shooting. By the third year I'm usually much more comfortable on the grounds I'm hunting. So far it was holding true. Before long I'd get a major clue that should stand me in good stead this coming fall.

My stand was situated in a spot that gave me a pretty good view of the patch of woods I was in. Several of the deer I'd seen had passed a particular spot and they were both coming and going by there. I was being pig headed about moving my stand so I sat and waited for what I knew would be an opportunity if I just held out a little longer. The previous year I'd seen the biggest buck that I'd seen in a while pass right by this stand... at the time I was set up about fifty  yards away. Yep, I'd hang.

So it was that on the afternoon of the 23rd of December I was sitting in my tree waiting for something to come by. Anything! I'd have shot a coon if one had come by but they too had quit frequenting my little patch of woods.

An hour before dark I heard the faintest sound of a leaf being moved behind me. I wasn't going to make that mistake again. Very slowly I turned to look over my shoulder. I strained my eyes toward their corners trying to see without moving and finally made out movement in the brush about 15 yards behind me. I knew immediately it was a deer and could tell that I could move slowly without being seen. 







   

[Charlie Lamb]

I gambled on a full body turn and was rewarded by being able to make out the form of a deer through a thick spot in the brush. From the direction he was moving I suspected it would simply feed away from me and that would be that. When I could tell that it's attention was directed elsewhere I stood up and shifted my feet to be ready for whatever might happen.

At one point I caught a glimpse of antler through the brambles and limbs. It was certainly no barn burner buck, but it was a buck and given the chance I'd shoot him.

I thought I knew where he was headed and it held little chance for shooting. But just when I thought he was going to walk out of my life he turned along a trail that passed within 10 yards of my stand. I had passed down that very trail several times while hunting there and I suspected he would pick up my scent and booger out of there. I'm always careful to avoid touching any brush with hands or legs when approaching a stand and rubber boots sprayed with a no scent spray really helps cover a hunters comings and goings.

I know a lot of guys scoff at the idea of trying to be scent. If they get down wind they're going to smell you so they say. Well duh! Really? I try to reduce my scent to keep impact on my hunting spots to a minimum. Deer will still figure you out after a few trips in and out but won't necessarily tear down the woods trying to avoid the area.

He walked up to a spot that I'd shot many a practice judo at before getting down on morning hunts. He stopped there and looked off away from me... see where this is going.

Soon as I touched anchor I let the string slip. The arrow appeared to hit just a little farther back than I would have liked. I knew it wasn't so far back that it was a paunch shot but it wasn't a ten ring either. It was either back of lungs or liver. I was confident of that.

The arrow failed to fly out the other side and I could see the yellow fletch most of the time he was in sight. At about 75 yards lost sight of him. Of course doubt set in almost immediately. A quick look at my phone for the time and at the western sky for confirmation and I decided the best thing to do was to leave and come back in the morning. The temperature was cold enough that he wouldn't spoil but i had no idea how bad the coyote situation was around there. I'd have to  take the chance.  I climbed quietly down the ladder and walked silently back to the truck. 

[Charlie Lamb]

It seems that all of my fingers have turned to thumbs so I'll have to finish this up in the morning.

[Duncan]

 

[Bowhunter4life]

 

Anxiously waiting... 

[kennym]

If you are still after it on Dec 23, you are waaay more hardcore than most bowhunters around these parts. Rifle season is the end for most....

Waitin, and I need to go to work!

[Jim Brennen]

Great story Charlie, Im in till the end

[Papajack]

Thanks Charlie! I have always enjoyed your writings!

[Charlie Lamb]

Back at the club  house I made myself a good supper and watched a little TV before turning in for the night. There would be no tossing and turning or letting worry interrupt my sleep. I was positive it was a liver hit and that's a dead deer for sure. Especially when hit with a multi blade like the the Magnus 4 blade I had used.

I'd given the buck plenty of time for a hit in the liver and also for a paunch hit. If lungs had been hit I could have trailed him within a half hour without problems. It's always best to play it safe.
.
It was a temptation to go straight to the last place I'd seen the buck but there was vital information to learned from the blood trail. There wasn't much of a trail to learn from. He'd run down the same trail as the little doe had back in September. It wasn't so much a trail as an area of movement between the edge of heavy prairie grass and woods edge. Blood was sparse which I attributed to the arrow remaining in the wound. What I did find confirmed my suspicions about the hit. The first leaf I found with several drops of blood on it was studied closely. There was no smell of gut or paunch to it. That would have made me slow down. The color was good and red, but darker than lung or arterial blood without bubbles of any kind. Yep, liver hit.

By the time I reached the point where I'd lost sight of the buck the blood was just about non existent.
That was not a big deal. Undisturbed as he was I  knew the buck had to be within another hundred yards and the presence of blackberry brambles and plum thickets determined the route of most likely travel. He'd have moved along until he felt safe and bedded down. That's where I'd find him.

I know this all sounds confident and self assured and I was, but there was a tiny seed of doubt that always goes along with trailing anything and I don't care if you made a perfect double lung hit.

Twenty five yards inside the thicket the trail branched with fingers of travel seemingly diverging in every direction. That information was filed away for future use and I suspect I'll be telling a story about that spot next year.

I explored each trail in turn, taking them each another fifty yards before turning around and trying another. I was staying alert for blood but wasn't finding any at all. I stepped off the trail and into the plums. Before long I saw a suspicious form just ahead.

[Charlie Lamb]

There was nobody in town or back at the clubhouse to help so I knew I was on my own. I'd have to wrestle the buck (haven't seen the rack yet, have ya?  ) out of the thicket by myself. Getting him to the truck would be another matter. With a lot of grunting, griping and cussing I fought my way out of there to a place where I could get a photo of the buck and lay my hands on that mongo rack... which I would find was only half a rack as if he wasn't small enough. The lost antler had come off the skull cleanly. Whether it was a natural shed, ripped off in brush, or knocked off by another buck (not likely) I would never know.

 
Although the topography wasn't perfectly flat it wasn't exactly hilly either. The problem as I saw it was that everything between me and the truck was uphill. It was only slightly uphill, but uphill nonetheless.

Years of keeping the animal whole until it could be checked with the game department made me want to drag him out.  The fact that his antler was tiny didn't do a thing to negate his obvious weight. I would bust my ass trying to drag him out.


Since the Missouri Department of Conservation had instituted a digital checking and tagging system in the last couple of years I decided to do something I'd never done before. I was going to take him apart
using what is called "the gutless method". 
 
It actually went very well and soon I had him all laid out in pieces. A loin, front shoulder and ham all went into my Bison gear pack. It would take two trips but it would be a lot easier than dragging.






 

[kennym]

Excellent!!  Once telechecked , you can do whatever you want!!

[23feetupandhappy]

 

Great Story