I wanted a SW wind to hunt the stand. The morning of Oct. 31st I got it. Additionally, a cold snap came through and the temps dropped to 24 degrees. Perfect. Now remember, the day before I never saw a deer and Gene saw two does. It was like someone flipped the switch. That morning I saw 39 deer including seven bucks. They were running/chasing all around me. I passed up a great up and comer "almost" 6x6, 4 yr.old that would go around 150 inches as he chop-stepped a doe with a pretty face 12 yards in front of me. But no Hurley.
The morning of Nov. 1st dawned clear but the temps warmed up 20 degrees. I again had my preferred SW winds at maybe 8 MPH. I don't often sit a stand two days in a row but this was just too perfect. This is an important piece of the story in that I have always liked an "almost wrong" wind as long as it's directionally consistent. In otherwords, he was angling in from the NNW from across the skid road, then heading due south to his bedding area. The SW winds would give him the false sense of security of a nose wind. The stage was set.
At 8:38 I still had not seen a single deer. I assume because of the temp changes temporarily shutting down the chasing. By 8:38 the morning before I'd probably already seen 15 or 18 deer. It just goes to show you how it can turn on and off. Anyway, right then movement caught my eye across the skid road. Here comes Hurley all alone heading to the bedroom. He stopped at his scrape, sniffed around without pawing and walked in on MY new trail. I instantly turned the camera on and pointed it where I knew the shot would be. I hit the record button and watched the red light go on indicating it was recording. Now the bad news. I saw the red light go on but whether it didn't catch or whether I double clicked it when I took my finger off the trigger the fact is the camera shut down without me knowing it.
Hurley walked my trail perfect until he got to the downed limb I'd placed to shift him closer. When he got to the limb he stepped to his right and went around the far side of the barrier rather than closer to me. He angled quartering away a few yards heading into the wind, then turned broadside walking by slowly at 20 yds. I didn't dare try to stop him because I knew if I did he'd be looking and might bust me in the smallish tree I was in. So I took the shot while he slowly walked.
He never knew what hit him. I was using my beautiful Tall Tines recurve, which is a 58" takedown by good friend Brian Wessel and pulls 61 lbs at 28". The arrow was an old Cabelas skinny carbon SST 230 tipped with... guess what, a Woodsman and steel adapter weighing 250 grs. total up front. The arrow blew right through him and disappeared. My minds eye saw a liver hit. But then I started second guessing myself on the exact placement.
I lost sight of Hurley in just ten yards or so. Just to be safe I stayed in the stand until noon. When I got down I walked over expecting to see the shaft laying there but there was nothing. No arrow, no blood. I backed out quietly with intentions of going home, reviewing the footage and accessing the hit on what to do next. After I got home and found I had no footage, I again opted to play it safe and decided to not take up the trail until 3 PM. Because there was no blood I figured maybe the feathers hung up on the far side or something. We weren't on the trail for two minutes when I looked up and saw him laying dead only about 75 yds. from the shot. Thank you God for making this all happen so perfectly.
For those who are interested in the stats, he field dressed 248 lbs. and measured 190 1/8" gross as a 7x6. I may be wrong and we'll never know but I believe he would have measured over 200" in '09. Last year I noticed he dropped maybe 25 lbs. in weight and his rack probably went down ten inches or more. This year he stayed the same in weight I'd say, but he developed a basic 5x5 frame, whereas he was a basic 5x4 frame previously and had more nontypical points. Gene and I disagree on his age. I know he's at least 7.5 but I honestly think he was 9.5 this year because of a buck I think was him I saw in 2006 when (I think) he was 4.5. I'll send the teeth off for the cementum analysis but I'm not convinced they're 100% accurate. That B&C 4x4 I got last year came back that he was 6.5 and we know he was 7.5 because of previous pictures.
Here is a picture of last year's buck...Burley
At any rate, I just wanted to say thank you for all the support and friendships. I sincerely hope someone derived a little help from this story that will benefit themselves in their quest to make dreams become reality. Best of luck to all.
BW aka Uncle Barry
Topic: Uncle Barry missed... update (Read 5493 times)
