This past weekend I was handed a gift. My buddy from Iowa was up hunting with me and wasn't really expecting to shoot anything since I was focusing more on him shooting a deer. He doesn't care much for hang on stands so he was limited to my ladder stands so I went to an out of the way stand for my Saturday evening hunt.
The snow that we had gotten over the last couple days had just melted so everything was soggy which made for a quiet entry to my stand. About 6 I decided to stand for the rest of the evening. I don't think I was standing for more than a minute and i spotted a dee heading my way and it looked to be a rather nice buck. The route he was on would take him within 20 yards up wind of my stand. I tried to not focus on the rack but it was obvious he had more than 8 points.
As he was just about to go behind an aspen his near leg went forward and sent the arrow on it's way. The shot was a little lower than I intended but not that much and tight to the leg.
At the shot he spun around and took of as fast as any deer I have ever seen. Man, he was out of there in a hurry. There was about a foot of arrow sticking out due to hitting the off side leg. After 20 yds he broke the arrow off and that is where the blood pretty much quit. He headed for a shallow crossing of the creek and that is where we found last blood. This is on my neighbor's property so I called for permission. I decided to wait till morning due to the thick alders. Next morning I found one more speck of blood on a line that was going away from the crossing so I did a grid search and came on him in about the last spot that I would look on that side.
This was the blood that I had on impact. I took this pic the next morning so it was even better the night before.
This is where I found him pilled up in the alders just short of the creek.