Hello Everyone, Its been probably close to two years since I posted last, I was debating buying a stick bow, Well I did and I managed to get my first deer ever. I have learned alot from this site. Thank you all. Let me start by giving you some background. I started shooting archery at age 5, with my brother who is a year and half younger. My father started us off shooting in the backyard at hay bales, my brother and I shot a lot as young kids together we shot traditional bows. My dad never hunted. When I turned 13 I switched to the compound and my brother stuck with the trad. At age 15 my whole family moved to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. There was no place to shoot and at that age we were getting into other things. Neither of us shot much for 4 or 5 years. At age 18 my brother and I took a hunters safety course in the hopes we would be able to do some hunting when I went to college in Tallahassee Fl. Well I was there for a year and that was the first time hunting. My brother would make the long drive up for a long weekend and we started off hunting squirrels with the 22. and 12 gauge, it was a lot of fun we bagged a bunch of them and cooked them up for dinner usually. Slowly I got into the deer end of hunting, my brother made a trip up and we tried to hunt deer. We learned a lot about it. I never got close enough to shoot at any while I was in Florida. After a year at FSU I moved back to Wrentham Ma, and started school for auto mechanics. I hunted Southern RI for a year and saw exactly 1 deer that year. The next year I hunted state property in Wrentham and saw a few deer, I did have a shot at a doe, but never had a doe tag. I was on the right track. I hunted Wrentham again for another 2 years seeing deer and scaring them either moving too much or having the wind wrong. Now at this point I’m 24 and the old Hoyt I’ve been shooting is getting tired, I was torn between getting a new compound or a trad bow, my brother was pushing for trad. I like a good challenge and after shooting a Z7 I went to Hunters Rendezvous and bought a used Longbow, It’s a 60lb Thunderstick Moab. I bought shafts and fletched my own arrows added the nocks and points and went hunting. Karl flew in to Boston to do some deer hunting with me for a week we gave it hell. I shot at 2 does in the same afternoon and missed both of them, learning a good lesson, you have to pick a spot. That was it for our hunting last year. Fast forward to this year, I spent a lot of time scouting before season during the summer, and to be frank I was discouraged with what I was seeing, or the lack of sign compared to what I’d seen in other seasons. I hunted before work for an hour as much as I could and Saturday or a weekday alternating every week, If I could get out of work early I’d head to a spot, Tuesday the 25th of October I got out of work early and headed to the woods with my bow and a climber, the spot was on the way home from work which was nice. I had scouted the area and had a good idea of where I wanted to be, but didn’t have a tree picked or any shooting lanes cut. I found a nice tree and went up it. I started sitting around 3pm, my spot was on the edge of a field where it met a power line, there was heavy cover about 150 yards into the woods and I thought they might bed in the thicket. At about 4:30 a truck pulls into the field and drives about 50 yards away from me, a father and his two young sons get out and start looking around the field edge, 15 minuets later out comes the ladder stand and they are setting it up on the field edge 40 yards from me, oblivious to my presence. at 5:15 they are chopping shooting lanes, and I’m talking big trees, not just trimming. At 5:20 I hear crunching coming from the thicket, I pick up the bow turn and see 2 does coming down a trail that will put them past me at less than 10 yards, the wind was perfect, They get about 15 yards away from me and stop, put up their ears and stare towards the people setting up their tree stand. Still no shot they have to go another 5 yards for a clear shot. Instead they turn and walk back the way they came, no tails up just didn’t like the people in the field. It was neat to see, although very frustrating. My brother Karl was able to come up November 8th to hunt with me, I gave him a run down of my spots and turned him loose, I still had to work most days, I’d go out before work if I could and on days off I’d hunt with him. Sundays we spent the day in the woods scouting. I need to say Karl has hunted religiously every morning and evening, scouting during the middle of the day. Karl was sitting in ladder stand I had in the woods on 11/11/11 and at last light he got a shot at doe and had his arrow deflect off a small branch. He had a few close calls this week but it either got to dark or they’d be to far out of stick bow range. Major progress was being made Karl was seeing or hearing deer almost daily, mostly towards the evening, so far neither he and I had seen a deer in the morning this year. Yesterday morning I sat a stand I had never hunted before and first light I had a coyote come by out of stick bow range. I got down and scouted the area at 9:30 and didn’t see anything great. Karl and I hunted the evening he saw two does again out of stick bow range. Last night we planned the hunt for this morning 11/19. Karl was headed to the field edge I had seen the two does’ earlier in the season in the hope of catching them on their way back to their bedding. I was planning to sit in a tree that worked well with the SW wind in an area I had seen deer the last two years (same tree I missed from last year). The tree is on small hill, at the top of the hill is a small pond, at the bottom of the hill a rock wall, 20 yards of woods and a swamp, it seems like a pretty good funnel to me. I had low expectations, Karl and I hunted this small piece of woods, 4 or 5 times this year, but on a different side of the swamp, and although there was some fresh sign hadn’t seen or heard a deer this year. I got up at 4:30 this morning, headed into the woods around 5:15, the batteries on my mag light died on the way into the woods, It was still dark and I stumbled and bumbled around the woods looking for my tree, I felt like a rookie (which I am). I found the tree and was up it in the climber by 6:00. I got my stuff situated and as soon as it was light enough to see, around 6:30, I started reading a book. At around 6:45 I hear some crunching, I put the book down grab the bow and stand up, It’s coming from dead up wind, perfect. I see him at about 25 yards come out of pine thicket quartering to me, he stops and starts smelling, I’m thinking “yup that’s where I was bumbling around the woods this morning.” He takes some cautious steps in towards my tree. I’m excited, my heart is racing, I have to look away and tell myself to calm down and take some deep breaths. I calm down, or trick myself into thinking I’m calm, not sure which one. He gets to about 15 yards, I have a small pine branch between him and I, The deer turns broadside, I remember bending over to clear the branch, the next thing I remember was picking a spot and watching the arrow hit the deer, He stumbled and took off down towards the swamp, I watched him bound down, over the rock wall and start running parallel to the wall, the last time I saw him he was behind a broken oak from the snow storm it looked like he went down, but I wasn’t sure. The woods were quite again, and I was in shock at was had happened. I shot him at 6:53. I tried to remember and replay the shot. The shot looked pretty good I thought, I wasn’t sure if I hit the shoulder or not, it may have been a touch forward I told myself. I got the binoculars and searched where I last saw him, where I thought he dropped and couldn’t see anything. I told myself to sit back down and wait. I’ve read enough on this site and others to know, that a dead deer isn’t going to go anywhere and if it wasn’t a good hit, not to push him. I picked up my book and started reading, somewhere in that time I sent my brother a text saying I hit one. Karl was excited, I got down out of the tree at 8:00am. I was still in shock at what just transpired. I went to where I had hit him. The leaves were churned up and there was no arrow, and no blood. I looked around and saw the arrow 5 yards away towards the rock wall he ran towards and over. I picked up the arrow and noticed the broad head and an inch of the shaft was snapped off, My heart dropped, thoughts of just hitting the front shoulder ran through my mind, I looked at the arrow and realized that there was blood and fur on the shaft about 8-10 inches up from the break, I told myself okay, maybe the broad head is in the off side shoulder. I found a very few drops of blood on the remaining way to the rock wall he crossed 15-20 yards from the shot. I looked around when I got to the wall. The sight humbled me, my deer was laying 15 yards form where I stood, the last place I saw him when I watched him take off after the shot. I slowly stalked up to him, he looked dead, but I wasn’t taking any chances. When I got to him I was a mess of emotions, Too many at once to process. I filled out the tag and put it on him, then I trailed him backwards towards where he crossed the wall, there was more blood, but still not what I would have considered a great blood trail. Karl got down out of his tree and drove to where I was hunting he was in disbelief too. I showed him the point of impact the way he ran and then the deer, He took some pictures, which was great. He Helped me field dress him and then drag him out of the woods. We took him to Bass Pro and checked him. Dressed he weighed 118 lbs , When we dressed him the heart and lungs looked intact, The arrow clearly passed through the chest cavity, and the broad head was lodged in the offside shoulder like I had thought, I’m not sure what I hit, but by the amount of blood in the chest cavity and the fact that I think he hit the ground dead not 15 seconds after the shot I’m sure I hit something important. I’m thrilled I got this deer when my little brother was around it was a great experience. This was my first deer ever, I’m so glad I got him with the stick bow and an arrow I made. I think this may have been the hardest thing I’ve done, hunting deer is a challenge especially public land in Ma. I’m thrilled with this deer and the time it took to learn to hunt. He’s hanging now and Karl and I are going to attempt to butcher him ourselves. The only question I have is if he will be okay hanging tomorrow with temps around 60? Thanks for reading along, Happy Hunting to all, now to get Karl a deer……… Happy Thanksgiving Chris
Topic: First Trad Harvest..... Long Story (Read 549 times)
