I was blessed with a wonderful hunt yesterday on some public ground near home. We had some flooding last year and it caused a big elm tree to fall, creating a nice natural funnel. I found this spot last Saturday while scouting a bit and went in yesterday for an all day sit. I was feeling a bit down as I found out the night prior that I lost my private spot to someone leasing it from the landowner. No ill feeling toward the landowner and was trying to be thankful for still being able to hunt this public ground.
I got set up in my tree and really had minimal expectations for the day. I saw a small buck early and really considered shooting him. I am wanting to try some different things with my butchering this year and want to process three deer. When he walked away I was wondering if I was going to regret not taking him. About 30 min later a doe came in and as I was grabbing my bow off the hook she pegged me. She didn't know what I was, but was very skittish and I almost laughed out loud when a bird landed near her and she about jumped out of her skin. She left without offering a shot.
Another 30 min passed and I heard a deer approaching from my left. I saw antlers first and then saw a do doe & fawn appear form the brush with this buck trailing them. He wasn't pushing them, but was staying about 20 yards behind them. For about 10 minutes I was able to watch the doe & fawn feed and the buck raked a tree and made a snort wheeze, both a first for me to experience.
As the doe & fawn moved off the buck followed and ended up right underneath my tree. The buck started walking directly away from me and it wasn't a good shot. I grunted at him and fortunately he turned to his right a bit and gave me a hard quartering away shot. He was at about 15 yards when I shot and the placement was perfect, but when we took off I saw quite a bit of arrow sticking out of his right shoulder. I texted a buddy and we went through the scenario and he said it sounded like the arrow hit the off shoulder and stopped the arrow. He was exactly right and I found the buck about 100 yards away in some thick brush and could see he died quickly from a double lung hit.
I was so thankful to have this wonderful experience. I was so thankful this deer died quickly. I was so thankful for a place to hunt and the health to be able to venture into the woods. I was thankful for my friends to share this hunt with through texts and pictures. Overall I was just thankful for God's blessing and that "every good and perfect gift is from above."
Portable set up using Lone Wolf stand and sticks. Black Widow PCH, Carbon Express 250, VPA 3 blade heads.
Topic: Black Widow Buck (Read 2863 times)
