Well I finally shot the Monkey Off my Back at Solana.
Took my first Trad Deer at Solana on 12/30 the morning of my first hunt. Didn't have my camera with me and lost my cell so no pics
I hope the story works for you.
I had to work on 12/28 so I had a late afternoon flight out of Baltimore. I was grateful the snow had spared us in MD for the most part and I would get out on time. Well I forgot about the weather gods in TX because no sooner do I arrive in Atlanta and get to the gate for my connecting flight than it gets cancelled due to thunderstorm activity. After waiting in line I finally get a flight out the next afternoon. I was a bit bummed since I would miss the first hunt on the 29th, but seeing as this was my first real vacation in 5 years I was in pretty good spirits anyway.
I arrived in camp before the hunters got in and busied myself getting my gear together for the next morning. Meeting everyone was great and I was feeling so excited I barely got 2 hours of sleep! 4am couldn't come soon enough.
By 6:15am I was nestled in my treestand which was a ladder stand with a tripod swivel seat adapted to it. The stand placement was perfect. I was buried about 15 feet up a live Oak with 12-18 foot cedars in front of me providing impenetrable cover from anything below me. There was just enough space to comfortably shoot my new 59# @ 29" Toelke 62" t/d Whip longbow.
There was quite a bit of wind which in the end turned out to be my salvation and possibly my bane. About 6:40am a descent size doe with her two yearlings silently eased into the feeder area cautiously hugging the cedars around my stand and down wind. They had no idea I was there nor did I know they were there until they appeared. I have to believe the wind was blowing my scent right over the top of them and prevented me from hearing them come in. It was too dark still to make out much so I just sat there waiting for enough light to shoot.
Not long after the feeder went off at 6:55am another doe and her two yearlings arrived on the scene from up wind. They came on pretty quick, but the first doe never comepletely relaxed. By now it was just light enough to shoot. The first doe was about 10-12 yds in front of me working from left to right at the bottom of my shooting lane. Just a few more steps and she'd be almost perfectly broadside in the opening. The next 5 minutes seemed to take an hour as I slowly scanned from deer to deer trying to pick a moment when all were head down eating or facing away so I could ease my bow into position inch by inch.
I sized up the situation and found my opportunity to draw back ever so slowly. Once I reached my anchor I tried to pick a spot under her sternum a few inches back remembering all the advice from the night before on how they drop. I released the arrow and heard a crack. Damn I missed and hit a rock I thought.
The doe turned to her left and made a tight arch from my left to right running past the feeder 20 yards in front of me. In the spilt second I could see her clearly as she passed the feeder my mind registered the image. As I sat back and dissected that image I began to slowly piece together the shot. Here is what my brain registered...the arrow was sticking out the far side and angling back looking like a pass through with the fletching out front. Her far leg was dragging and she wasn't bearing any weight on it...man can they run fast on 3 legs. Then the next instant the arrow disappeared and her running seemed to improve.
As I tried to think what internal damage there had been I immediately thought, looks like maybe back of liver and definitely guts. Probably hit the off hind leg and the crack which I thought was rock must have been hip or leg bone. The improved running was definitely beuase the arrow snapped and was no longer interfereing with her leg. Should be a leathal hit, but gonna have to give her time, maybe into the next morning. I sure hope the coyotes don't get her.
I had at least an hour and a half to wait for pick up. As I calmed down, I began to dissect what went wrong with the shot to hit her so far back. Did the wind kick up at the moment of release? Did I lift my head? I certainly couldn't blame it on her dropping. I kept replaying the shot and then it occured to me, "how could my fletching be sticking out the far side?" That's impossible. Did I see what I thought I saw?, Clearly not. If the fletching was on the far side, could she have done a complete 180 at 10-12 yards on an arrow going 160fps? I don't think any deer is that fast. No matter what I did I couldn't reconcile the shot. I now realized I actually had no idea what I had hit. Man! my confidence was shaken. I was feeling down, but decided after an hour to get down and see what I could find arrow or blood wise.
I fould the broken back part of the arrow laying under the feeder. There was blood on the first 2-3 inches with a few drops farther up the shaft. I pulled out a good arrow and determined there was 11 inches of arrow and broadhead missing. That means I got 13-14"of penetration, I thought. I looked around and there seemed to be no blood. I crouched down and saw a little bit right by the feeder and then a couple more drops in the next 10 yds and then nothing leding up to the cedar thicket where I lost sight of her...DANG!!!! Now I was a wreck I was kicking myself in every way possible.
When Gary, the guide, picked me up he kept asking me where I hit her. I tried to explain, but couldn't. Finally I just said, what my brain registered is not physically possible, so in truth I have no idea. We decided to give her a few hours and come back before the afternoon hunt and after lunch.
Two of the other guys had arrowed a doe and hog respectively and since the blood trails on those were light we had a busy afternoon of tracking ahead of us. So back to the ranch house and lunch. We tracked the hog first and after finally listening to the guide's dog we found the hog still alive, but hurting bad. So far so good. The other doe we had a light, but steady blood trail. We tracked her for a good while and came to the conclusion that she wasn't hit bad. A fact later borne out as another hunter saw her the next evening with her wounds well on their way to mending. They are tough critters.
By this time it was after 1pm and getting close to when we'd need to head out for the evening hunt. I was quietly trying to keep from freaking out since I had been tracking for almost 2 hours and had yet to even start on the scant trail my doe left! My spirits were down and I was feeling pretty horrible the more I thought about it. I suggested that the guide could take the other guys to their stands and I would wait for him to return and we'd look for her rather than me go on the afternoon hunt. My fellow tradgangers told me not to worry and we would all look together.
We returned to the stand and after making a general eyeball extension of the few drops and my last visual we fanned out to enter the thicket with hope that someone would find a drop of blood. There was an open break in the thicket and it seemed the most likely spot the deer would have entered so the guide, Gary, went in with me a few steps behind. Another in our party swung wide to the outside of the thicket. He stepped on a twig catching Gary's attention. Gary looked up and was about to tell him that the deer hadn't gone that wide when he looked down and there she was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She was stone cold and stiff and less than 50yds from where she was shot! She collapsed onto her belly and was laying there with her rear legs under her. She hadn't even rolled over on to her side. We dragged her into the open and it was as if the weight of the world was lifted off my back. I now was able to solve the shot mystery.
The arrowed had actually hit the near hip bone putting a hole through it large enoungh to fit my index finger through it. This took out the femoral artery. Based on where she was standing the arrow should have crossed her perpendicular or very slightly angling back. What it did was angle forward and stopped in front of the off side rear leg. She had onviously dropped and started to turn away from the arrow changing her aspect to slightly quartering away. As she ran, she ran under the feeder catching the expposed arrow on the feeder leg snapping it off at the skin. The arrow shaft remaining in the entry wound, plus the downward and forward angle caused all the blood to remain inside. The broadhead stopped just under the skin on the far side. What I thought was the arrow fletching sticking out the far side was actually the fletching sticking up over her back. My mind interpreted the image almost exactly backward of what happend. Amazing what we see and don't see in a split second.
She was dead in a matter of seconds. In fact we were standing less than 20 feet from her when we decided to leave her and come back!
I was exstatic. I was fist pumping in ecitement the whole way back. My first trad deer. I couldn't be happier. I had missed 5 different times earlier in the season. In each of those cases there was a deflection or the arrow was too low or too high. Now my elevation was right, but my windage needed some work.
I took a couple pics with my blackberry, but lost my phone so I hope someone caught a photo and can send it to me.
I can't wait for my next chance!
Topic: Solana Ranch -What a ride into the New Year (Read 60412 times)
