Thanks for the story, Cam. I'll tell it from my perspective. Oh, and yeah, I did take a dip in the pool.
We were not too long into our hunt when Cam saw a mound in the water to our left. I was the only one with the binocs, and I thought it was just a mound of reeds but Cam thought it was a nutria. We kept on walking and I kept on checking. I thought it too big for a nutria since the two that we had seen earlier had been a bit smaller. When we got almost to the level of the mound I finally saw a head sticking out. I don't remember exactly what Cam said, but I remember after shrugging and heading into the water that he said that the water might be cold. I was vaguely aware of Cam shuffling through his bag for his camera and telling myself that any gators in the water would be cold and slow. At least I hoped that was the case. I wasn't sure if I could close the distance, but the nutria was facing directly away from me. Everything went really smoothly, with the nutria ignoring the occasional gar surfacing. I covered about 50 yards and got to about 6 yards away when I decided to shift to the left a bit ( I didn't want a texas heartshot). I shuffled a few steps,had a quartering away shot, and shifted my weight to get ready to draw. Unfortunately I leaned against a reed sticking out of the water, making a faint snap as the tip broke. I held my breath as the Nutria slowly turned his head toward me.
I froze, and it probably was 3-4 minutes until he finally turned back around. I couldn't believe it when he did, but given this reprieve I wasn't wasting any time. I drew, released, and the arrow took him just how I wanted it to. He dropped like a sack of suet onto his side and I thought it was game over.
I waded over to him, and as I got over there he slipped off the mound into the water. I figured he would be laying right there, but all that was there was the arrow. I swirled the arrow in the water with no luck. I was getting pretty concerned when I noticed a little ripple in the water around 20 yards behind me and to my left. In my haste to get there before the nutria got away, I didn' t pay any attention to the small dirt hump in my path, so it was 'down goes frazier, down goes frazier'. I got up, poured the water out of my quiver, and made my way over to the nutria. Tough critter, but it couldn't stay under any longer. The second shot pic is me trying to put it out of it' s misery. Guess what, I suck at 1 yard and in. The arrows sliced his neck and glanced off the side of the skull. I found the arrow and tried to push the nutria toward the shore, but he thought that he needed some iron in his diet. My tusker broadhead stood up to his teeth, and the nutria was on his last legs. I grabbed him by the tail and got him to shore. I took a couple of swipes for my tusker broadhead with the RADA sharpener and we were off to look for more.
The nutria is in the crockpot as we speak. A little nutria cacciatore. (No offense, felix.)
Topic: Pat Vs. The Nutria (Read 1314 times)
