Thanksgiving day First Trad Harvest!

[Dent]

First off I am a new member here (2nd post) but have been a Lurker on this site.  Second I would like to thank all of you for sharing your knowledge and experience with all those that are just getting started in this great sport!  This site and its members shortened my leaning curve tremendously.

I took my training wheels off Feb 2008 and picked up a new Bear Grizzly from Three Rivers Archery.  My first hunting season was one of fustration as I never had a deer within range of my newly chosen weapon. Never even pulled the string tight.

Now for the hunting story.  The day before Thanksgiving my long time hunting buddy called me and asked if I would like to hunt a peice of property that he had just gotten permission to bow hunt only. Neither of us had ever stepped foot on this 80ac peice of land, but we both knew where it was and that it held a good population of deer.  That night I used google earth to select a spot to hunt.  I found an area of mature pines that bordered a stand of hardwoods and made the decision to hunt there as the pines offerd a thick bedding area and the hardwoods offered nearby food source.

The morning of the hunt I told my buddy that we needed to keep the hunt kind of short as I had to get the the in-laws for Thanksgiving.  We agreed on meeting back up at 9:30. After climbing a pine 10 yds from the edge of the hardwoods the I noticed the wind was blowing from my right to left...about as good as it can get for this location as it was not blowing into the bedding area nor the area I expected the deer to be up and feeding.  Things were going well.

Just as it started to get light I had two does feeding on acorns about 80yds in front of me.  They never got any closer.  Then about 30 min after they pass out of site a spike came into view feeding under the same tree.  He feed for about 20 min before moving off. At 7:40 I look to my left...directly downwind...and I see a deer coming straight to me about 30 yds out.  He is walking the edge of the pines and hardwoods.  His route takes him about 10 yrds inside the hardwoods and 20 yds right in front of me.

At this point the blood is pumping!  I dont remember anything about the shot other than focusing on the crease behind the front shoulder.  The next thing I remember was watching the fletching spinning as the arrow is in flight.  The deer reacted with a duck and roll away from the arrow.  Only his front legs seemed to move.  I watched as my fletcheing seemed to be headed straight for the vitals only now to beheading for a quartering away and low gut shot. I thought I saw the arrow enter the deer a little behind the last rib and low.  Then the deer just stood there and looked around.  To my surprise and horror he just walked slowly away like nothing happened!  Then I spent the next hour and a half questioning if I had truely hit him.  I heared the arrow hit....or was it just hitting the ground....I saw the fletching ...you get the point.  I was going nuts.

After locating my arrow at 9:20 I discovered that I had hit him.

[bornagainbowhunter]

Did you find him?  where is hte rest of the story?

[Dent]

After looking at the arrow I saw that I had signs of a gut shot with bright red blood over it.  My best guess was that I had at least got one lung.  I then went to meet up with my buddy before working the blood trail.  We followed the blood trail to the last spot I saw the deer when we heard then saw him get up and run off.  Just as he crested the top of the ridge and had gotten out of site we heard him crash.  At this point we decided to circle downwind of him to try to get another shot at him.  As we came over the ridge we saw him laying there with his head down, but he saw us too.  As he was trying to get up I sent the fatal shoot on its way just as he was on all four legs.  He went down with the shot.

I have cannot remember being more excited in the 30yrs since I killed my first deer!  As a side note, we had this deer skinned and quatered and on ice and I made it to the in-laws by 12:05...for the 12:30 feeding!
http://s839.photobucket.com/albums/zz313/sdent_photos/?action=view¤t=Firsttradkill.jpg" target="_blank">http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/zz313/sdent_photos/Firsttradkill.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">

This 5pt is not my largest but will be my most memorable.  I used a Bear Grizzly 60lbs @28, Carbon Express Heritage 250 cut ot 30 in with a hundered grain brass insert and a 125 grain Magnus screw in two blade.

[Dent]

Ok.. how do you post picture on here?

[swp]

Congrats!

[Dent]

Figured out the picture thing.

 

[Lin Rhea]

You should proud. Congratulations.     Lin

[Day Dreamer]

:thumbsup:WAY TO GO

[bohuntr]

       

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Many happy returns of the day to ya!

[Chris Surtees]

   

[Altiman94]

Awesome... Congrats!

[Rick Butler]

Congrats!  

[Irish Archer]

Cool! Congrats.  

[ron w]

Well done......

[TimDougan]

Nice Congrats! TD.

[30coupe]

Welcome to Tradgang and congratulations on the buck!  

[Fishnhunt]

awesome story and pics! thanks for sharing.

[Bob L.]

Thats Great

[Kenkel]

Congratulations buddy!!!!  I had the exact same results with my first longbow deer.