Me and my bud went hunting this evening on my favorite ridge - barely got in the woods and bumped two nice bucks, went about 50 more yards and bumped a doe. I was still about 200 yards+ from my fixed stand, and my bud had his climber. He went ahead and set up right where we were, and I backed out the way we came, right to the starting edge of the ridge. Since I didn't have a climber I had to hunt from the ground. I foud a big pair of trees to hide between and waited.
Sure enough, a big ol' cow headed doe popped over the ridge directly downwind of me. She did the "I see you" tango in front of me for about 5 minutes before doing the Hitler high-step back and forth in front of me three times, trying to get me to move. the third time she was somewhere between 15 and 20 yards from me - I decided that when her head went behind the big pine tree between us I would draw. I drew back, and she gave me the perfect broadside shot, but was staring a hole through me and had one leg in the air. I knew she was gonna duck, so I aimed right at the tuft of hair just under the knuckle in her front leg. I figured she would duck right into a perfect double lung hit.
When I released, that doe ducked, and I mean DUCKED - she dropped competely on her side and the arrow passed JUST over her back, never touching her. She hit the ground so hard it took her a second to regain her footing to bolt away. She left a bare spot in the leaves where she hit the ground and scrambled back to her feet. I may as well have been a guy in a bad suit emptying a Desert Eagle in Keanu Reaves' direction.
After I retrieved my arrow, a fat spike came wandering by, and gave me a shot between 10-15 yards. Somehow I managed to hit the one strand of ancient barbed wire between me and him, with one of the bleeders from my Stinger shaving a dozen or so hairs off his chest, just under the knuckle.
Today, in the battle of Man VS Deer, Deer won...