When I first thought about them going down in site I only thought about the typical full out run and pile up with not much after that. However, there have been those times I have seen an animal bed down or slow down and walk. At those times the death experience is a whole different thing. It becomes a whole different experience when you watch death more slowly take hold and win out over the struggle to survive. I have seen this from the stand and from the ground when trailing up animals on some occasions. It is harder to watch, but in some way I find myself more bonded with the animal having shared it’s last of life’s struggles in a more personal way than watching them pile up after a death run or finding them stone cold at the end of a blood trail. Last year my #3 was a lung, and liver hit on a quartering away shot when I turned sharp on the trail just as I shot ,and I got back a little farther than I would have liked. I watched that buck stop running, walk, circle around and bed down about 60 yd. out. I watched him in my binoculars in a little gap in the cover where I could see his tail and part of this head as he weakened. After a while I saw another deer back in the heavy cover. I couldn’t tell what it was. There was a big commotion in the area. I thought another larger buck I had seen in there a few days earlier was after him and they were fighting. I am still not sure if that happened or it was all just him. At one point he ran backwards through the brush to about 20 yd. from me. He ran around in a couple circles backwards and went down for the last time. I sat and watched him a long time after it was all over. I was happy, sad, and a few other things all at once as I sat there.
Topic: Down in sight, or out? (Read 970 times)
