I have put in a bunch of days in the woods this year, and got a doe and a turkey early, but there has been a long dry spell since then. I have been holding out for a big whitetail, and have seen a few, but either I screwed up a stalk, or a few days ago, blew two shots in 30 minutes. This morning was the last chance, since I will be visiting family over Thanksgiving, so it was pretty much all or nothing.
I got to where I wanted to be before daylight, and settled into the snowy landscape, prepared to see lots of deer and maybe get lucky. I was absolutely amazed when a little 4x4 bedded within 20 yards of me after I had been sitting all of 5 minutes. As soon as the light got to where I felt confident, I stood up and came to full draw, settled in, actually picked a spot, and let fly at the bedded buck. I could tell that the shot was a little back, and a later autopsy proved that it hit liver, but the buck got up and walked off, obviously hurt bad. I saw him bed under some trees, about 100 yards from where the shot took place.
After a decent wait, which seemed like days but was really about 30 minutes, I slowly moved on him, and he was hurt too bad to get up, but still had his head up. A second arrow through the lungs finished the job, and I had this year's buck.
He's not the biggest deer in the woods, but I put in lots of time, in warm weather and very cold, and I feel like I really earned this deer. Nobody said it would be easy, and this year, it wasn't, but I am happy to have had the opportunity to hunt as much as I did this year.
Topic: A long season, last day buck (Read 1326 times)
