Finally I climbed down and walked over to check/ film the rub. Then, I quietly worked my way over to where I saw him break the arrow to get a better read on penetration and blood loss. I'd either proceed or wait depending on what I found. There was plenty of blood and I could see he was falling and spraying. I checked my watch and it'd been 20 minutes ( I shot at 7:56 AM)so I slowly slipped forward. Actually he made it farther than I thought and I found him a little over a hundred yards. The bad news is he died right in the bottom of the dry seepage below the header I was watching. I filmed myself on the initial approach. You know how I keep saying weird stuff always happens to me? Well as I approach him I'm filming myself and I look in the dirt about two feet in front of his nose and I could see something. I said to the camera "what do we have here?" I picked it up and discovered it was one of those aluminum foil helium balloons and it said "Happy Birthday" on it. I'll tell you right now... if it would have said "Get Well Soon" I would have freaked out! Anyway, he's a beautiful buck. I have his one shed from two years ago and his G2 measured 13 5/8" in 2011. Last year I think his G2s were maybe 14". This year they shrunk back some to "only" 13 inches. I'm not sure if it was his age, his health issues or whatever. I don't really care. Then all of a sudden it struck me.. he broke off his left brow tine. I wasn't sure if it was in his death run or in the last day or two but it was a fresh break. I back tracked him and checked at the base of the rub tree and never found anything. Not that I care. For those interested, his main beams are just under 26"; his G2s 13" and almost 13; his G3s 9 3/8". As is with the broken tine he still measured 157 5/8". If I matched the broken tine with the opposing tine (7 2/8") he would have totaled 163 2/8" as a 4x4, which is a really good 4x4. I absolutely would have not been able to get him out without cutting him in half and I really didn't want to do that. I walked to where I could get a single bar on my cell phone and called Gene. He was in a tree 100 miles away and I hated to have him have to come help me. I actually told him that I'd handle it myself. Then my phone buzzed five minutes later. He was on the way. As it ended up we literally had to cut our way in to get the four wheeler close enough. Let me tell you, I... WE are getting too old for this stuff. As I said, I shot him at 7:56 AM and I finally got him out at 5PM. Oh.. one other freaky note.. get this, my friend Daryl Kempher from Michigan called this afternoon. He shot a doe this morning at 12 yds. She only made it 50 yds. As he walked up to the doe, there laying on the ground next to her (he swears to God!!) is another one of those helium balloons... only this one is a big yellow smiley face. Think of the chances of that. Anyway, I'm not smart enough to post photos so I'll try to get Steve-O to post some for you guys. Meanwhile, I'll be back out there in the morning. Best of luck to all. BW
Topic: A 101 Year Old Man (Read 2526 times)
