Well, I got very lucky this evening! I sat in the blind behind my house. Had a really nice buck that I’ve had lots of pics of come in along with several other deer. Somehow, I flubbed a 12yd shot and hit him way forward and low from where I was aiming (you can see the entrance hole in the pics). I got out of the blind and found the arrow covered in blood, and what appeared to be a really easy blood trail. Because the hit was questionable, I backed out, went to the house and made/ate supper.
About an hour later I started the tracking job in the dark. The trail was very easy to follow, but to me it looked more like a muscle hit than chest cavity blood trail. I kept moving slowly. I got to a fence about 100yds out. When I turned down the fence shining my light, I could see him in the corner about 100yds away……………..still alive and walking.
I immediately shut off the light, and stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do next. I decided to back out and wait longer. I also decided that he must have been hurting pretty bad, or else he would have jumped that fence and run off to who knows where!
After another hour, I went back to where I last saw him. The blood trail followed the fence and turned in the corner to keep following it. I found where it appeared he laid down a little ways after the turn, but he was not still there, and I couldn’t figure out where he went when he got up from that bed.
At this point, I was thinking I had lost him for good. I didn’t give up quite yet though. I went back to the fence before the corner I saw him turn at to the blood I had been following when I first saw him. This got pretty confusing, as I had thought he had walked all the way down the fence to the corner. That was not the case. The blood trail turned off into the brush before the corner. I followed it on out to the fence after the corner. And was totally confused at that point because it looked like 2 different trails crossing each other.
Again, I went back up to the first fence to reevaluate things. I was standing there and shined my headlamp around and BAM, there he was. Ended up being only about 30yds from that fence corner.
As I said above, I got real lucky. He was facing left when I shot. I missed left and low, hitting him in the front leg. Somehow the arrow went up into his neck. And in doing so, cut something lethal!
Anyway, I was very relieved to get my hands on him!!!! He’s a mainframe 8 with an extra point on his left G2, so 9pts total. He is a narrow, yet very tall rack buck. His 2’s and 3’s are pretty exceptional. If his brows were long like the rest, he’d be about perfect!
Here’s a few pics of him:
Bisch
Topic: 2021/2022 Fall/Winter Harvests (Read 31680 times)
