Monday, September 12th, 2011 The walk that lay before me was a long one. About a mile and a half of dim roads, foot paths, and game trails through the Ocmulgee river swamp. Sweat streamed down my face. The stinging beads would occasionally make their way into my eyes and spark a series of involuntary blinks in an effort to restore my vision. The plethora of gear on my back and in the many pockets of my camo added to my burden. Not to mention this was the second time I had made this same trek today...
I arrived at Horse Creek WMA just before lunch, with full intent of scouting the swamps hard until I found what I was after...a hot food tree showing good feed sign. I had been told earlier, by my friend R.C., about an oak he had found the previous week that was starting to drop. Armed with its general location, I set out to find it, and see if it was being hammered by deer or hogs.
When I got to the area, I couldn't find it. I checked every oak in the immediate vicinity of where I thought it should be, but none were dropping yet. I decided that while I was back this far, I may as well check as many trees as I cold until I came across something. I worked my way deeper into the swamp. After checking an untold number of oaks, none of which were showing any signs of dropping, I came upon a water oak that was exactly what I had been looking for.
There were acorns everywhere, and the ground was decimated beneath the crown of this tree. I walked a circle all the way around the oak, assessing the details. There were a couple piles of droppings, and a lot of busted acorn hulls with teeth marks on them. This was golden. Now to pick out a suitable location for an ambush. In the 5 minutes since I had walked up on this tree, the wind had changed direction 3 times. Knowing that the wind was going to be so unpredictable, I decided to climb the tree that would provide me with the most cover, and climb high so that if the wind was wrong when the deer came in, hopefully it would blow over them.
The tree that I decided upon was a big, mature overcup. It was so big that my climbing rope wouldn't reach around it for the first 8 to 10 feet up. I had to throw the rope around the tree, and hold the snap-link end in my hand until I reached a height where the tree's diameter shrunk enough to allow me to fasten the snap-link to the D-ring on my climbing belt. Finally I reached a height that put me above a spread of limbs, with another big spread above me. I felt like I would be invisible, and the 22 to 24 ft. height would help with my scent. At 1:30, with the tree prepared for my return, I headed back toward the truck. On my way out, I found the tree R.C. had told me about. It was dropping heavily, but there just wasn't enough feed sign showing to make me hunt it.
...at 4:30, I finally made it to the edge of the swamp. The air under the canopy of the trees was noticeably cooler, though the humidity was greater. I don't know which is worse. By this time, every thread of clothing I had on was drenched in sweat. I'd have to get lucky with the wind if I hoped to have any success today.
I decided to circle around the tree on my approach to avoid leaving any scent in the area where I thought the deer would be coming from. As I neared the tree, I walked under a very large swamp chestnut which was about 25 yards from the tree I was climbing. I noticed a pure trail beat down to this tree, and a good many acorns on the ground beneath it. All of these acorns had been cut or knocked out by squirrels. They were still very green, and a month or more away from their natural drop time. I noticed some teeth marks on a few hulls, so I knew the deer were hitting these too. Still, there was more sign showing on the water oak I prepared to hunt, so I went ahead and climbed as originally planned.
There was a steady breeze, which was most welcome, the only problem being that it was changing direction by 180 degrees every 5 to 10 minutes. Nothing I could do but sit back and see what would unfold. At about 6:30, an armadillo made his way toward me, and brought his obnoxious racket with him. I wanted so very badly to launch an arrow, to put an end to the annoying noisemaker, but didn't for fear of spooking a deer later with the smell of his blood. After a good 45 minutes, he was finally out of my hearing. As the sunlight was fading, I began to hear turkeys fly up to roost deeper into the swamp. You always know the time is getting right when you hear this sound in the evenings.
At approximately 7:45, I heard a loud crash of palmettos about 60 yards to my right. I stare intently in that direction, and suddenly see movement. Three deer gradually appear, and begin easing toward the...swamp chestnut!! They move in and start feeding noisily on the huge chestnut acorns. I'm kicking myself at this point, for not climbing over there. I get to thinking that there's probably not too many of the chestnut acorns, and that they'll eventually come to the water oak. Well, 10 minutes later they’re still feeding under the chestnut!
Daylight is fading fast, and I’m starting to wonder if this is going to happen or not. Finally one of the deer starts easing closer. She’s definitely headed to the water oak now...but wait. When she gets to about 20 yards, she locks up. Something has caught her attention. I'm thinking maybe she caught a whiff of me, but the wind is lightly blowing in my face?? She stands stock still for a looong time. One of the other deer began easing up to her, and I guess it calmed her down a little bit. Now, this second deer takes the lead. She gets broadside at 12 yards, just a few steps from getting shot, and all of a sudden she looks straight up at me! I remain as motionless as humanly possible. After several tense seconds, she looks away and resumes her approach to the water oak, now with noticeably more caution. As she does, I make one last turn on the stand to get my feet in proper position for the shot.
A very, VERY light , almost inaudible squeak is made when my boot brushes against the cable on my stand. The lead doe is walking and doesn't seem to hear it, but the next one in line whirls and springs away. Things are coming apart fast! The lead doe looks around to see what's going on. She's quartering away slightly, but there's a tree blocking my shot. I'm expecting her to bound off any second. She makes the terrible mistake of turning around and trying to slip back the way she came in. I know it's now or never, so I come back to full draw. As she clears the tree that had been preventing me from shooting, she's quartering toward me slightly. I hate that shot. A split second later, she's full-on broadside and the green light goes off. Literally. I'm shooting a green lighted nock.
I watch the arrow go to her, and the shot looks good, but much to my surprise the arrow doesn't pass through. In fact, the penetration looks poor. In a flash, she's tearing out, making a tremendous amount of commotion running over palmettos by the dozens. I watch the lighted nock bounce away, and then disappear into the darkness. I hear her crash out through the swamp for what seems like an awful long way before things go silent. I have a lot of doubts running through my mind, mostly stemming from the obvious lack of penetration. The shot looked good, but it was a very low light situation, and I'm starting to second guess myself.
I gather up my gear and climb down. I walk over to where she was standing at the shot, and find the cause of the poor penetration. This is what I found.
The big Tree Shark had blown through the deer and penetrated almost a full 2 inches into a cypress tree that had been behind her.
Blood started immediately at the hit. There was a little spray on the tree the broadhead was embedded in. Knowing that I had plenty of penetration, I took the trail up immediately. First I started seeing blood like this.
Then more like this.
And this.
More.
Topic: Deer #1-Horse Creek WMA (Read 451 times)
