Damn, I sure am getting long winded in my old age.
The short version is at the end if you want to avoid being subjected to my jabbering.
This hunt started early Sunday morning when I sat what my hunting partner Lenny Brown and I call the corner stand. It has a fence that parallels the north side of largest bedding area for several miles in each direction. It has produced a lot of shot opportunities of the years, mostly does, but during the rut the does cause the bucks to cruise the area. This hunt provided the normal opportunity on a couple of doe fawn combinations but we let them walk. We like the female deer to feel safe, thinking of them as our mobile decoy’s during the rut. Most often we do not start taking does until the last weekend of the season, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, or until both of us have taken a buck. A while back all of the ranchers and home owners collectively agreed to limit any gun hunting to the surrounding cultivated fields (mostly wheat, barley, and sunflowers) while designating approximately a ½ mile by 3 mile area as bowhunting only. Unfortunately, the majority of bucks are killed in the fields before they come close to reaching their full growth potential.
After getting off the stand at 10:30 I stopped and talked with Nate and Jason, the two young men renting the ranch. They are usually good for information regarding the movements of any good bucks they saw while gun hunting the open fields. They were in the process of heading out to track a “huge 160+ buck” that Jason had hit in the right front leg a couple of miles away. He had taken a really long shot, breaking the bucks leg; they saw the leg flopping as it ran away. I offered my help with tracking but it was declined. They went tracking. I went home and took my two Redbone hounds, Addie and Molly, out for their daily run. Back at the ranch by 1:00, their truck was parked at the house but neither of them came out to let know how the tracking went. I figured it didn’t go very well or they would have the buck hung in the tractor shed.
My plan was to hunt the funnel stand until about 3:00 or so, if was slow I’d move to the triple stand which had a really active scrape going. The funnel stand has been good to us over the years, the first time we put anybody in it (Jason and Nate’s brother) he shot a 115” buck ten minutes after Lenny left him there. It is the same stand I took a 4x5 from four years back.
Approximately 80 yards from the funnel stand I crossed the fence and had towards a small creek. Normally, when entering this stand, from this direction, I walk in the creek for 15-20 yards to avoid leaving my scent at two well used deer crossing, then go directly to the stand. I still have to cross the major trail the deer travel, but I cross it where their head is going to be behind a tree and I have a perfect shot opportunity, if/when they smell my tracks. I believe this trick was learned from one of Uncle Barry’s videos close to thirty years ago. Several deer have been taken in that spot as they were sniffing my tracks. As I am starting to pull my pants leg above my boot to keep them from getting wet, a big doe suddenly comes out of the brush, jumps in the creek and runs directly towards me. Instinctively I grab for an arrow thinking there has to be a buck following. Catching my movement she suddenly stops. I freeze with the arrow out of the quiver but not yet nocked on the string. For ten seconds we have a stare down, you know the one it seems like you always loose. The faceoff is suddenly interrupted by a buck, a nice buck, walking along bank of the stream. Miss Daisy the doe (we’ll get to how she got her name in a little while) decides she has had enough of both of us, turns tail, runs back up the stream, then jumps out and disappears into the main bedding area behind my stand. Naturally, the buck ran after her never presenting a shot opportunity. That is when I realize he is limping and the front right leg is flopping around like it is broken. My plan is to get settled in my stand then text Jason to let him know a wounded buck was spotted chasing a doe, but it was much smaller than the one he described.
After pulling my pant legs up, the creek is entered and slowly navigated up stream for twenty yards. Two steps out of the stream, heading toward the tree with the Screaming Eagle hanging on it, a different set of antlers are seen slowly moving away from me, further into the bedding area. He is a solid 4x4 so a couple of quick grunts are made but he continues on, disappearing into the bedding area. Moving to the tree, it is quickly ascended, the safety rope hooked to it, and after sitting down an arrow is nocked. Now the events of the past several minutes start replaying in my mind and the lessons learned/ what if sequences are started and reviewed. After a few minutes of reliving the encounters, in my mind it is apparent that not much else could have been done to change the outcome, sometimes ..it just happens.
After another five minutes of surveying the area and seeing nothing I slowly reach for the phone in the cargo pocket on my pants. As my hand grasps the phone a movement is caught out of the corner of my eye. Freeze! Count to twenty then slowly turn my head to the left as far as possible without moving my any other part of my body. Nothing. Wait another thirty seconds before seeing an ear twitch at the edge of my vision. Moving very slowly the body is shifted enough to face the deer, eventually see a yearling feeding on the tall, dead, grass at the edge of the thicket. She is undisturbed. The wind is good, out of the south, opposite of the norm. My body slowly relaxes, nothing is going to happen soon. A few minutes later, while watching the yearling, another movement is seen behind some brush. The movement eventually turns into antlers. It is time to stand, if possible to do so unnoticed, and get ready should something good happen. Slowly I start to stand when Miss Daisy materializes in the brush a few yards from the antlers. She is acting nervous and keeps looking behind her at the buck in the brush.
This could get fun real fast, be ready.
A few minutes later neither have moved. However, during this time I managed to stand all the way up, turn sideways (hoping my fat belly wouldn’t protrude too far past the tree), lean against the tree, get fairly comfortable, and ready. A couple of minutes later the buck comes out of the brush trying to sniff the doe’s posterior. It is the flopped legged buck. Miss Daisy moves to what I think is twenty five yards from me then beds down behind a big clump of brush. Hobbling along behind, Flop leg catches up and nudges Daisy several times. She doesn’t move. He limps a few yards away, laying down facing her behind a different clump of brush, then starts licking his bad joint.
This may take longer than I had hoped.
With the naked eye they are barely discernable behind the brush. Had I not watched them bed it is unlikely I would have known they were there . After a few minutes I start getting antsy and need to think of things to keep my mind occupied, while minimizing any movement. Let’s try to get a better look at them. Eventually my Leica’s are discretely removed from under my vest allowing me to peak around the tree and watch pieces of Daisy and Flop through the brush. Here is where Daisy got her name, right over the spot on the chest one would normally pick when releasing an arrow there was a weed shaped somewhat like a Daisy. For the next two hours they laid there, she chewing her cud, him licking his leg and sniffing the wind. Preparing for when they leave, my mind plays every scenario it can think of and plans accordingly. Using a technique adapted from my golfing days, Arrow flights through various shooting lane and holes in the brush are visualized. Various stances and what is needed to contort around the tree to make each shot are analyzed. Hey, don’t laugh, visualization works, try it.
Finally, Daisy stands up surveying the surrounding area looking for danger. Flop gets up. I pray they come my direction, giving me a clean shot. Flop nudges Daisy, she runs around him heading away from me. Flop takes a couple of steps and is quartered away. Quickly I put Tension on the String (you really ought to read Mark’s book, it is good) and grunt with my mouth. He stops, looking back, directly at me. We both freeze for about 15-20 seconds, then he turns his head and starts licking his leg. My instincts kick in; the mind again visualizes the arrows flight through an opening picked earlier. My version of Rod’s mantra goes through my mind, pick the spot, anchor, pick the spot, expand, conclusion, the arrow is on the way. It flies true, as visualized, through the opening, and hits perfect for a high lung broadside shot. Flop runs hard, directly away for twenty yards and turns into the brush. I think I see him stumble as he enters the brush but am not certain.
Post shot adrenaline lets down starts, I sit down for the first time in over two hours, repaying everything in my mind. Quartering away as Flop was, concern immediately enters my mind, the angle was excessive for where the arrow hit. It might have missed one of the lungs. The phone comes out, it is 3:40, two hours before dark. It is decided to wait until fifteen minutes before dark and then follow the trail for 75 yards or until dark, if he is not found we come back in the morning. Twenty minutes after the shot (and after texting Hunter and Lenny) I slip out of the stand, leaving same way I came via the creek. At the ranch house nobody is there, Nate and Jason have gone hunting. After killing a whole five minutes at the truck I decide to drive around to the back pasture and watch it until tracking time.
While glassing the pasture the plan changes, my gut tells to slowly sneak in to where I think Flop went down from the south instead of tracking from the north where the shot was taken. Then if he was still alive and spooked, he’d head north staying on this property. Fifteen minutes before dark the stalk is started, several deer are busted from their beds along the way. They all sound like they are running on four legs. When reaching the place where I thought he had went down there was a set of antlers outlined in the light brown grass.
I apologize for the quality of the photographs; they were taken with my cell phone or a camera without a flash.
Stepping it off last Saturday Flop made it 25-26 yards before dying. Unlike I thought the shot was 22 yards not 28, still it was by far the longest shot Pigger has taken on any animal.
I called Jason and Nate, they both came to look at the deer and confirmed it was the one Jason had hit earlier. Twenty five years ago my brother shot a three legged deer with a funky rack with his 270. The deer was running faster the three other bucks with it. The farmer told us it had been on his farm for three years. This buck was hit at the elbow joint below the ham (hey, I’m a project manager not an anatomy professor), I think it would have survived and had funky a rack on the left side.
Uncle Barry has been a bad influence on me. Since attending his Bootcamp and reading about Hurley I have started naming deer, usually with strange names. A side note, can you believe it, the company I work for is called Hurley?
Gotta thank both Lenny and Hunter for coming out and helping me with the photographs and cleaning the deer. It is appreciated.
The short version:
Walking to my stand I spooked two bucks. After getting in the stand, a buck I named Flop was following a doe I named Daisy and they bedded behind me (If you want to know why they got their names read the recounting above.). Daisy got up to leave and Flop started to follow. I shot Flop. Look at the pictures.
Topic: Pigger Comes Through....Again (Read 651 times)
