After fighting off a bad case of target panic last year I settled down comfortably with the clicker and just got back to shooting well in the past 3 weeks. This morning found me up one of my favorite trees in a small wooded funnel between two multi-million dollar houses and this doe and her fawn sneaked in from behind me. There had been a squirrel running around back there for 30 minutes and I wasn't paying any attention to the noises but when I heard a twig snap I spun my head around and there she was only 20 yards away and coming down the trail. She was too close to stand up so I decided to remain seated. I looked ahead and saw she was going to hit my shooting lane quickly. I mouth grunted her to a stop with her head behind a tree, drew, anchored, picked a spot and let fly. It looked like a good hit and she took off running with her head low and about 6 inches of arrow sticking out. She had that run that looked like she would be going down fast - kind of plowing forward. I didn't see or hear her go down and decided to wait for an hour. It ended up being an hour and a half as another 15 deer came sauntering by. I can take 2 a day in VA but decided to hold as I didn't want to have confused blood trails. The only buck I saw was a spike and with this many does around it ought to be an awesome rut. They were all headed for a bedding area about 400 yds away. When I finally got down I saw good bright blood at the impact and a fairly easy trail that led right to her about 60 yds away. You can tell from the picture that the hit was a little to the right of where I was aiming. The picture shows the entrance. Fortunately she was just about broadside to me and the arrow went through both shoulders taking out both lungs (up high). I could not find the arrow, except that at the site where she lay there was a 7 inch piece of the aluminum shaft. It had to be the middle as there was no fletching and no head. I backtracked the trail 3 times and couldn't find anything else. When I opened her up the aft 9 inches of the arrow were in the chest cavity. I'm guessing that as she ran the arrow proceeded to push on through.
Note the white star on the bridge of her nose. There was a piebald doe around a few years back that obviously passed on some of the genes.
Anyway, I love those 2 blade Stinger heads made razor sharp with my KME. I'm only shooting 45lbs at my 27in draw and was very impressed that it took out both shoulders like that.
Lastly - thanks everyone for all your help this year. I hope your season is as a great one!
I used a one-off RER recurve that is 57in and a 2016 arrow with a 125gr Stinger 2-blade head.
Topic: VA opener success (Read 1614 times)
