back from Blackbeard island NWR

[eman614]

two of my uncles, a few friends, and myself made our bi yearly pilgrimage down to the GA coast to hunt blackbeard island last weekend. its a four day hunt, but the first day all you can do is scout and hang stands. so after the boat ride across and getting camp sitiuated we all headed out to find our spot.

on the october hunt i found out that my normal spots were dried up, so this hunt i intended to look over some new ground.a buddy and i took off in the same direction and found what we thought to be a great spot. we hung aou stands and went back to camp.

then next morning proved to be un eventfull for us. i saw 1 pig about 80 yards out, and he saw four does all well out of shooting range. back at camp we found out one of the non trad hunters with us had scored on a nice doe, and that one of my uncles had missed 2 does.  that afternoon i moved my stand, but the results were worse, i saw nothing that evening.

the next morning i woke up to a fever and a pounding head, so i took some medicine and went back to bed. when everyone made it back to camp i got the reports. aparently i had not missed much. the only person to see anything was the uncle who had missed the does,and he had shot 2 pigs, but had not found either. he had tracked both trails for over 200yard through some thick palmettoes before loosing the trail.

by that afternoon i was feeling well enough to hunt so i made to 4 mile walk out to my stand and pulled it again. this time for the last time. i ran out of time and had to hang it in a spot that wasn't very good. i didn't see anything. back at camp it was more of the same. the one uncle had gone in early to look for his pigs some more but to no avail and noone else saw anything.

around the campfire my uncle tim and my buddy buck and i decided we were going to give it one last push out near the beach. so at 6:15 the next morning i found myself with my back to a scrawny myrtle bush on the last dune before you get to the beach. i had a big palmetto bush just to my left and one about 10 yards infront of me. there were two beat down trails on either sid of the palmettoes. one was about 5yards from me at the closest and the other about 5 feet. at 6:20 i see a deer come around the palmetto in front of me. it is on the trail closer to me and moving my way on a trot. i get ready for the shot and notice that he has some bone on his head. that really gets me going, at 2 yards he is still on a trot and angled to me but i feel confident i can make the shot. i pic a spot draw and release. at 2 yards there isn't alot of time between release and impact and i couldn't hear the dull thump of my bow for the loud crack of my arrow burying up in his chest. he kicked and made a loud grunt and tore off down the dune. i heard him cross a thin strip of myrtles and continue till i could hear no more.

[Steve H.]

BBI is a classic bowhunting destination.  I hope to hunt there someday but is a bit far for me right now!

[eman614]

i sat there trying to figure out what had just happend when i heard something coming down the other trail. all of a sudden two small does pop out on a dead run. i let out a bleat and the stop dead in there tracks, but it is only for a brief moment and they are gone again before i can get a shot. i sit back again still trying to figure out what is going on when i hear more deer coming down the trail. 3 does, two small ones and one big one, bust out the trail going at least a hundred miles an hour. they pay my bleats no mind and continue down the dune.

i sit back down and take a look at the clock. 6:35. i get my camera out and take a picture of an amazing sunrise coming up over the ocean. i watch it come on up as i go over the shot i had taken, and i come to the conclusion that it must have been a good one. i mean how could i miss at 2 yards?

for the next hour all is quiet. i decide to eat some breakfast. i was half way through my pack of crackers when i caught movement coming from the beach behind me. i get ready for the shot when all of a sudden it stops on a dime and then turns and runs. it winded me before i ever got a good look. i turn back around and finish my crackers. all is quiet, until a little after 8:30 when i hear a deer coming down the trail again. i can tell this one isn't running like the others, so i ready for the shot.

out pops a spike, as soon as he steps out on the dune he turns to my left giving me a perfect broadside shot. i pick a spot and start my draw when i catch movement on the trail. its a nice 8pointer and he now has my full attention. i let down on the spike a pick a spot on the 8pnt i hit my anchor and let it fly. the buck catches me about the time i let go and starts to duck and roll. everything seems to be going in slow motion. i see the arrow, i see the deer, i can tell that my shot isn't going to hit where i wanted, and then the arrow arrives. with nothing more than a dull thump and a fish tail of my arrow the buck spins away unscathed.

[bohuntr]

Wow, looking forward to the rest of the story! From almost no action to non stop action. I guess that goes to show a guy just needs to keep on getting out there and trying!

[DHR]

stoked to get a tale from BB island, that seems like a REALLY neat place.

[eman614]

stand time ends at 9 so when that time came i stepped out on the beach and waited for buck sho was hunting further up the beach than i. about 5 after he pops out on the beach and heads my way. buck is a pretty high strung fella andi can tell by the way he is walking he has a story. when he gets up to me i notice he only has 1 of the 3 arrows that were in his quiver. he proceeds to tell me that he has seen 16 deer shot 5 times and connected on only one of his shots.

i tell my story as we make our way towards tim who was hunting about 150yards short of me. we get to where he went in and we can see him hanging toilet paper. he gets out to the beach and sure enough he has shot one too. he tells us his story and we decide to go look for his deer. we get up on the first dune and are making our way to his tp when buck says "where did all theis blood come from?" we look down and there is blood everywhere. i look down the dune towards my stand and you can see the blood trail plain as day on the white sand. about that time tim says"i know where this deer is at , i heard it bed up not 40 yards from me"

more to come. i got to meet my wife for dinner

[wapiti792]

Awwwwrite I like this here now  

[Cookus]

   

[Cookus]

   

[kennym]

Eric, you are pickin up storytellin habits!!  

[eman614]

kenny, what can i say? i have good teachers.

now back to the story. so tim tells me he heard it bed up and i start getting excited. we follow the blood to with in 40 yards of his blind. tim stops and say "it should be right over there." we take two steps and sure enough there it lay. dead as a hammer. a nice island 8 pointer with a sticker point coming off his base. my shot was true and hit him right behind the shoulder taking out one lung the liver and ending up in his guts. we mark where he was laid with some toilet paper and go to find tims deer.

he takes us to where he sat then to where she was standing when he shot and then to where he last heard her, which wasn't 10 yards from where he shot her, and there she lay. it turns out he hit her right behind the jaw and cut her windpipe and obviously a large vein or artery judging from the amount of blood. we do some congratulating and drag our deer out to the beach. now its time to try and find bucks deer and make it a triple for the morning.

on the way into his spot we bump up two more deer, which between the 3 of us brought our morning total to 32 deer seen. we get to bucks spot and he tells us how the events played out and he tells us that the left and right of the shot were good, but that he thought he may have been high. to make a long story a bit shorter the three of us looked over those dunes for an hour and never even found so much as a speck of blood. out where we were at if you don't have blood you don't have much of nothing. there are too many different sets of tracks to i.d. and individual deer, so at aroung 11 we called off the search, and headed back to camp.

that evening produced 3 more shots for tim but he was unable to connect on any of them. buck and i saw nothing. the hunt was great as always. all of the trad guys in our camp got shots, and 1 of the 2 wheelie guys got a shot. the ride back to the mainland wasn't as smmoth as i had hoped for. in fact i felt like my little boat looked like ed bilderback's dingy in that one fred bear video, but we made it back safe and sound.

here's a pic of the sunrise the last morning
 
and one of mine and tim's deer
 
i guess i should mention that these aren't young deer, they are just a smaller sub-species of white tail. judging by the teeth of the buck, he appeard to be a 5+ year old deer, and probably didn't weigh 90 pounds.

hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading,
eric

[Cookus]

Nice deer!   Congratulations!

Congrats!

Bisch

[Old Chief]

Nice story and congratulations

[steadman]

 Congrats!!

[rastaman]

Great story and hunt!      

[South MS Bowhunter]

Great story!

[Liquid Amber]

I hunted Blackbeard in 1985.  There weren't any hogs on the Island at that time, but some mighty large eastern diamond backs.  To the best of my recollection my recurve was the only one on the Island during that hunt.  The last evening we walked the beach back under a full moon and it was spectacular.  

Congratulations on a nice island buck.

[Froggy]

Correct Liquid Amber, probably a few Mr Diamondback's on the island that would cover two bows with one skin. One heck of a critter !!!!

[kennym]

Way to go buddy!!