Windy days seem to be lucky for me.
I was hunting a choke point in a draw and a ridge that ran behind the tree I had my stand in.
About 17:30 I see a buck walking the ridge behind me and since I saw him late, I have about 3 seconds to get set for the shot.
He's looking around and I don't even dare stand-up. That means I have to twist while seated and can only get about 75% draw while trying to watch my limb tips to not get them fouled.
The arrow's gone. It hits a bit more forward than I planned and a whole lot of it is still sticking out. Arrgghh. He swaps ends and is gone in a second.
This particular tract of public gameland is pretty small and if he runs very far it's going to be tough to follow. So I have to make a decision. If the hit was bad and he's running ... he's gone. My experience with forward shots is that they're more deadly than they sometimes appear and I want some daylight for trailing because it gets THICK in spots. So after 15 minutes I get down and start looking.
There isn't any blood at the hit. I find my arrow 20 yards away. And a few yards further on (I'm running the compass bearing I took from the stand), I find this ....
Not terribly impressive. But at least I'm on the trail.
10 more yards and we get this ...
It's getting better.
The trail isn't heavy, but it's steady with spots like this ...
And this ....
Then the trail goes sharply downhill into a small creek. By the way, we're off the gamelands now, but we still have woods to work with.
The blood trail didn't cross the creek so that means we need to follow it. A few yards down the creek there's a sharp turn to the left and when I make the turn here's what I see ....
Very happy even if he expired in a most inconvenient spot.
It's about 8 feet up on either side, but after a minor stroke I get him hoisted up for the last pic before the field quartering.
I'd guess he only made it about 75 yards before going down. As fast as he was running and the way he piled-up in the creek, it was over in seconds.
Thanks for following along.
Topic: Robertson + TigerShark = second of the year (Read 411 times)
