Well, I lost my hunting lease earlier this year. It was a hard thing to go through. I had been on that lease for nearly 15 years, I loved hunting there, and I was comfortable there. I went through all the stages, mad, denial, grief, and finally acceptance. The acceptance part came after I finally got all my stuff off of the old lease, and found a small place here in town that I could deer hunt. This new place was not the same. It did not have pigs and turkeys, but it has plenty of deer, and I at least would have a chance to fill my freezer.
A friend of mine got me permission to hunt this new place, and I am grateful to him for that! About the end of July I went out there and set up a feeder and ground blind. As I said before, the place is small, so I only had one set-up, a ground blind set up for a S or SE wind.
I also set a trail cam up just to see what would come in. About every 10days to two weeks I would check the camera, and I was pleasantly surprised right from the start. There were deer there almost every day. several different does, lots of fawns, and several little bucks that would not be legal due to antler restrictions. Paul would check his camera too, and he would send me pics of deer coming to his stand. He has been hunting on this place for a number of years, and the deer are used to his set-up. Anyway, he would send me pics like these:
Now, I was not seeing anything but little bucks at my set, but knowing how close we were together, and how new my set was, I was not to worried. Besides, my main goals was to fill the freezer this year, and then find a new lease for next year.
The one day he sends me this pic:
I saw it and immediately decided that was my target buck for the year. I named him No Brows, and told Paul he could have all the others, and that I would be happy with no brows!
Opening day rolled around, and I was able get a shot on an old doe. I was a happy camper to say the least. Over the next several weeks, things slowed waaaaay down. I hunted a lot and had nearly no deer coming around. During the whole month of October, I saw very few deer, and zero good bucks.
I was getting frustrated, but kept hunting. On November 3rd I was lucky enough to get another doe. I made a great shot on her, and my quest to fill the freezer was being met! The deer were rutting hard that first week of November, and deer sightings were off the chart. Not many coming in close, but they were chasing does and running them ragged. That lasted about a week, then all was back to normal again, except that all of a sudden I had deer coming in nearly every sit. Several does (which I was not after any more) and several smaller bucks.
Winter finally came last week. I was kind of excited to see some colder temps, but there was one problem. The wind was out of the north and I could not hunt my set with a north wind. After several days of north wind, I could not stand it anymore! I scouted around and found a place to set up a small treestand for a north wind. It was in an oak tree right on the edge of a small clearing and I started hand corning it. I also moved my camera to the new location.
I was getting frustrated because the wind was howling and it was cold. I can take one or the other, but sitting in a treestand with temps in the high 30's and low 40's AND a 15-25mph winds did not excite me at all!
Finally, late last week, I checked the weather and the temps were still supposed to be cool (highs in the mid 40's), but for Friday afternoon and Saturday the wind was supposed to be out of the south, and not blowing hard at all! So, instead of my new treestand, I decided to hunt the ground blind.
Friday afternoon I saw one button buck, and that was it! This deer stayed there for an hour and ate every kernel of corn that I had thrown, and left with a full belly! Saturday morning I saw a doe fawn and a small spike. I watched until they left. Nothing else showed and I quit hunting about 9:30am.
I went back out there at about 3:30pm to sit the rest of the afternoon. It was early and there was still some of my hand corn on the ground from the morning, but some thing had definitely been there while I was gone because a lot of the corn was not there anymore. I got situated, and began playing around on my phone, texting friends to see who was or was not hunting. About ten minutes later I looked out the window of the blind to see.............
NO Brows was standing right in front of me at 12yds eating my hand throw corn! I have never seen this deer except in my buddys trail cam pics, and here he was. I got a bit nervous and reached for my bow. He was very jittery and twitched and jerked at every sound. I think he could probably hear me breathing! Anyway, as I was getting my bow up I made some little noise he did not like and he spooked a bit. He bolted away and stopped about 10yds out. He checked everything out for a minute, then came back in to 12yds again. He fed a bit, and worked into a good position for a shot. I drew to anchor, and loosed the arrow.
As soon as I saw the arrow hit him, my heart sank! I hit him waaaaaaay too far back and watched as he made a mad dash towards the middle of our pasture. I was using the String Tracker, and it peeled off about 150yrds of string before it stopped. I could see the arrow hanging by the fletching in the exit hole as he finally cut into the brush.
At 3:57pm, not 20 minutes after I sat down I had shot him. I was sooooooo mad at myself. 12yds is my primo hunting shot usually. I knew the shot was bad, and knew I had to wait to try to recover him. While thinking about what to do I remembered that Draco had a good tracking dog so I called him up to see if he could help. Our pasture is only about 75ac, and is surrounded by neighborhoods and businesses. I did not want to push this deer off of our place, so I decided I would have to wait till morning to pursue him. Draco told me he would be available around 10am.
I slept very little, if any that night. I had never purposely left a deer overnight before. Where my old lease was you could not leave a deer out overnight because the yotes would devour him before morning. The place where I shot this deer is very urban, and I was confident that coyotes would not be a problem.
I got up just after sunrise and could not stand it. It had been 13hrs since I shot this deer and I had to go look. I was hoping that I got liver and I would find him somewhere near where he went in the brush. That did not happen! I spent an hour and a half looking, and only found about 6 or 8 drops of blood where the string tracker line broke off at.
Draco called me at 9 and said him and his dog Bonnie were on their way. We met up and I told him what I had found, and that I was very worried. We started Bonnie out right where I had shot the deer, and worked our way to where I found the blood. Bonnie kept going and we never saw any blood past the point where I had found it. Several hunderd yards later (only about 10 minutes) Draco says "There he is Bisch"! I was exstatic to get my hands on this deer, and don't think I ever would have found him without that dog!
Thanks again Draco and Bonnie!!!!!!!
Gutting him was a mess! I confirmed there was no liver hit. it was all guts. I am still disgusted about flubbing a shot like this, but very grateful I was able to recover him. I am also convinced that if I had tried to track him the night before, I would have pushed him off our place and probably never recovered him!
Anyway, here is No Brows!
I know you read a lot of posts about how guys make perfect shots and hit right where they were looking. Guys should be proud when that happens, but I can't take kudos when it all goes right, if I also don't admit when things don't go just right!
Also, I can't begin to express how much thanks I owe to Draco and Bonnie! Thanks again!!!!
Bisch
Topic: The story of No Brows! (Read 1034 times)
