# 1) It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, 2009, and I overslept, so it was pretty light when I climbed into my son's stand. Mine was just too far into the timber to risk making the walk and bumping deer heading for the beds. I had just sat down, nocked an arrow and hung my bow when I saw a buck in walking along the creek about 75 or 80 yards away. He was just about to cross the path I'd walked in. I pulled out my can call and gave him a doe bleat. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned and headed right at me. I hadn't even had time to put on a face mask. I slowly reached for my bow as he walked behind some brush. There was a scrape about 12 yards away at about the 11 o'clock position. He made it to the scrape, stopped and stood broadside to me...with a fork handle sized limb right across his vitals...damn!
I thought I could just ease out to the end of the stand and maybe get a shot over the limb. As soon as my foot came down on the stand it let out a (seemingly) loud squeak! Double damn! He lit out without even looking to see where the squeak came from. I pulled out the can call and hit it again. He was about 40 yards away and slammed on the brakes instantly. He stood there for a bit, so I thought, what the heck, I bleated one more time. He wheeled around and came right back at me. This time he stopped about 22 yards away and obligingly turned broadside again. Even though it was still kind of dim (legal but dim), I could make out a nice hole through the limbs that lined up perfectly with his vitals. I came to anchor, picked my spot, and said to myself, "I've got this shot." The next thing I recall is the arrow going through that opening in the branches. Then it disappeared and the buck lit out like his tail was afire. My first thought was how could I miss him? Then I looked at the ground just past where he had been and saw my arrow, but the yellow fletching had an odd orange hue. YES! I climbed down as quietly as I could and sneaked over to my arrow.
Elated, I made myself go back to the tree and wait. I called my cousin/hunting partner, who was at work. Then I called my son/other hunting partner, who was at his in-laws' house 50 miles away for a "family" thing. I told them that I was sure I'd made a good shot and would call them back when I found him.
I waited about 20 minutes, then I walked back to my truck (only 100 yards or so) to get my knife...I was late, remember. As I was walking back toward my arrow, I looked out into the open pasture and this guy was lying about 75 yards from where I shot him.
By the time I had him field dressed, my son was there and helped me load him. I was sure glad to see him since my back had been giving me fits for a few days. Trying to field dress a buck by yourself when you can't bend over is a bit of a trick, but I got that done. I don't think I could have loaded him though. Thanks, Dave!
He's certainly not a huge 8 point, but he was my first buck. I started bowhunting late in life and usually just took the first doe that gave me a shot. Actually, I would have done that on this morning, since season was getting late.
The recipe was a 58" Kanati longbow, 46# @ 28", Beman ICS Bowhunter 500 shaft, Zwickey Delta with a 100 grain insert. The total weight was 519 grains with 22 percent FOC. The arrow passed through both lungs, penetrated about 1 1/2" into the frozen ground, then flipped over and was pointing back from whence it came.
#2) I had been trying for four years to kill a turkey with a bow...unsuccessfully. I have had a lot of fun and some near misses, but no bird in the freezer...until this spring. I have learned a lot about turkeys in these four years. Mostly that knowing a lot about turkeys doesn't help you kill one.
This year I kept moving my blind to until I finally had a pretty good idea where toms were going to pass by. We have so many hens in our area that you really have to just try to get in the right spot and wait because they rarely if ever decoy. I had watched several toms and 30 or so hens in the field all morning. They would come and go, but always seemed to be about 50 to 75 yards away. I'd call because just sitting in a blind doing nothing is really boring. It entertained me, but the turkeys were not impressed.
Finally, at about 10:30 a.m. two hens and a tom left the field about 100 yards south of me. At about 10:45 one of the hens came back out. I made a few clucks and putts and she came right to my set. I had a hen and a jake decoy out about 10 yards northeast of my blind. She went on past them and fiddled around at the edge of the woods. I kept checking out my other windows for the tom, thinking he might just follow her. Nothing...for about 15 minutes. Just me and the hen...then she was gone! I was looking out my north window trying to find her when I caught movement in my front window. I slowly turned my head and there he was...five yards from my blind...stopped...looking at my jake. I had my bow in my hand, but couldn't move to shoot without him seeing me at that range. I held my breath...finally, he started for the jake. Now he was in full strut. I waited. He moved out of my line of sight, so I drew my bow and leaned forward. He was standing right in front of the jake about 8 yards from me. It was a quartering away shot, but the arrow was true. It severed the tendons between the leg and thigh, cut a quarter-inch-thick wing feather in half, split the breast bone in two and sliced the far side lung in half before being stopped by the wing bones on the far side.
Here is the end of the story.
My set-up was a Hidden Hunter blind, 56" Dryad Orion recurve, 50# @ 28", ICS Bowhunter cut to 28.5", Zwickey Delta with 75 grain steel adapter to stiffen the spine a touch.
There you have a couple of Zwickey Delta stories. I shoot the two blade version. They are pretty devastating! I've never had an issue with flight with them. They shoot great for me.
Topic: zwickey broadheads (Read 919 times)
