Now the rest of the story....
The next morning we talked it over and decided to scout some more instead of climbing. Just after first good light, we pulled up to a spot, grabbed our bows and headed out. Walking down a dim road, we had just gotten out of sight of the truck when we heard some turkeys cut loose. We paused to look around and I caught some movement. Just a glimpse of a black form through the brush. Of course, turkey was the first thing that came to my mind. I told Robert I had seen a turkey heading as if to cross the road we were on. We stood there and watched a pig cross the road about 30 yards in front of us. Just as he hit the road, he caught our scent and was gone. My mistake may have cost us that one. We shrugged it off and continued on. Shortly, we hit the edge of the flooded swamp. We cut back to skirt around a finger of water and a pig exploded from the other side of the finger. It was one of those mornings where the wind followed at our backs no matter which way we turned. We completed our loop without finding anything worth climbing over.
Later that morning, after making another loop, we were climbing up and out of a bottom through a ridge of thick planted pines. All of a sudden we heard a hog crash off on a short run away from us. We froze and just looked and listened for a minute. Directly, I glimpsed movement through the brush about 25-30 yards away. We moved toward them, but had to cross a deep drain to get to them. Once across, I again saw movement about 25 yards ahead. It was THICK. We split up. Robert went to the left and I to the right. He was trying to slip up on a pig he could see down in another drain. As I was easing forward, I saw a pig rise up out of its bed and look in Robert’s direction. It knew something was up and got out of there in a hurry.
We headed back to camp for a few minutes and then got right back to scouting. We found some more good crabapples that were being hit, but they were right on the road and would have been hard to hunt. The next bottom we hit had fresh hog sign. It looked like we might get on pigs any minute, but we never did run into them. We came to a ravine that had a natural funnel crossing on it that looked like it could have been hundreds of years old. I could almost see Indians setting up an ambush here. We made a steep climb up and out, using the roots of trees to pull ourselves up. It was getting close to time to climb for the evening, so we headed back to camp to get ready.
Robert decided to sit over some sawtooth oaks that were showing red-hot sign, while I was to sit over some crabapples that looked good. He dropped me off at my spot. I strapped on my gear and started my walk. They had recently cut some timber in this area, and I stumbled across the clearcut toward where I would climb. The only good tree I could go up was about 15 yards or so to the east of the crabapples. Luckily, the wind was perfect. I made my way up the tree and hung my stand. After a little trimming, I had an unobstructed shot to the food. I felt like I would be fine as long as the deer didn’t come from directly in front of me down a logging road. From there, I felt like I would stand out like a sore thumb.
It was HOT. For the first hour or so after I got settled in, sweat was pouring off of me. Bead after bead dripped from my nose. I sat there with the sun bearing down directly in my face. When it finally dropped behind the tree tops, it was instant relief. At around 7:15, I caught the flicker of a tail about 100 yards away in the edge of a small clearcut. I switched on my video camera and zoomed in. When it came out from behind a small clump of trees, I could see it was a doe. She was alone, and eating on some of the fresh browse that had popped up in the clearing. She was in no hurry. She made her way across the small opening and slightly closer to me. I had a good idea she would make her way toward me and the crabapples. The problem was that she was going to be coming directly down the logging road from the direction I felt the most conspicuous. Afraid she might catch my movement, I quickly decided to film her until I saw her commit to the road, then pause the recording until she made it to the crabapple tree. I did just that. As soon as she turned down the road, I leaned back against the trunk of the tree and made like a statue. When she made it to the tree, I slowly leaned forward and hit record. I could hear her crunching the crabapples. I zoomed in on her and began looking for my opportunity to shoot. When everything felt right, I began my draw. The top limb of my bow will creak from time to time. When I got to half draw, I heard it pop. She never paid it any attention. I picked a spot behind the front leg, settled in, and sent the razor sharp Simmons TreeShark on it’s death flight. I watched the yellow feathers disappear in her, and saw her kick like she had been heart shot. She busted out of there on a short run of about 40 yards. Everything got quiet, then I heard her go down.
I waited on Robert to go with me to retrieve her. Not because I needed the help, but because I wanted to share the blood trail with someone who could appreciate it. It was about as good as it gets. After a few pictures and some video show and tell, I field quartered her and we headed back to camp. After missing the opportunity to film the deer I killed Monday afternoon, I was extremely proud of the footage I got this time. Hope y’all enjoy it.
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Topic: Great 2-Day Hunt / Video added (Read 578 times)
