Well Gents the story goes like this....I knew this buck was in the area. My 8 year old daughter asked one late July evening to take her for a 4 wheeler ride so we ventured out behind the house. We got back to an isolated bean field and there he was with 3 more bucks. He looked good even at 300+ yards. I have a mineral sight about 3/4 of mile north of there and decided to put up a trail camera over it to see if he was using it the next day.
On August 18th I pulled the card from it and sure enough he was on it. I was happy as all get out! I felt I had already had a great season just knowing I had a picture of him. I did not check the camera again until a week before our season began which was September 26th. I had gotten one more picture of him on August 28th and he was still in velvet.
I moved that camera to one of my stands knowing that he would eventually leave the mineral and possibly feed on the acorns that were falling near that stand. I hunted that stand opening night and had a really nice 8 point in front of me eating acorns for 10 minutes (I took pretty cool cell phone pics of him). I decided to pass on him knowing that the big non-typical and another nice 11 pt was in that area. Being the type of guy who very rarely kicks a gift horse in the mouth, I thought I'd regret passing that 8 point up. I hunted that particular stand one more time on October 10th and saw only does. October 13th came with colder weather but I chose to stay home and mow the grass and do a few more things around the house.
I ventured out the evening of October 14th and hunted a stand at the edge of a bedding area. I saw only a doe and her yearlings. On my way out I decided to pull the card from the camera by the other stand. So I walked out of my way to that stand and took the card from the camera and headed home. I viewed the card that night and guess what.......he was less than 20 yds from that stand on October 13th at 7:15 pm! I sighed and my wife asked what the sigh was for. I showed her and she just laughed and said "you’re probably not gonna sleep tonight now are you?”
Thursday, October 15th I did not hunt due to work obligations. I decided that evening that I'd try and hunt the next morning. Friday, October 16th I awoke to a beautiful morning. I showered and had my coffee and began to dress. I was still undecided where to go. I eventually elected to hunt a stand I can access from a neighbor’s property. I grabbed my bow and hopped on my mountain bike and headed that way. My wife and friends laugh that I rode my bike there in the dark but hey whatever it takes. I park my bike just off my neighbor’s driveway and walk in the remainder of the way, about 300 yds. This is the first time I hunted this stand this year and was hoping to be able to find it in the dark. I found it pretty quickly and began to climb up. After getting situated I realized I had forgotten to bring the cushion for the seat. Oh well... a sore butt never killed anyone. The woods were extremely still and quiet. We had a light west wind which was absolutely perfect for that stand. As it began to get light I gave a few soft grunts. I waited about 15 more minutes and did the same thing. Nothing showed so I began texting two of my buddies I knew were hunting that morning also. After a few messages were sent and read, I decided to try grunting again. A few more soft grunts were given and the call was tucked back into my jacket. I sat there a few moments and caught movement in front of me and slightly to my left. I looked that way and saw antlers coming up the ridge. I stood and grabbed my bow off its hook. I looked back in that direction and he had stopped just at the crest of the ridge about 35 yards away. He was just looking around and that's when I realized what deer it was. I began to shake a bit and told myself to calm down and that this was going to happen. He stood there for a bit looking for the deer that had just made those grunts. I figured that once he didn't see that deer he would just turn and go back down the ridge where he had came from. Nope, he turned and walked right to me! I prepared for a shot and he stopped just behind a hickory tree facing me. All I could see was his antlers and part of his rear end. I could tell he was scanning the area for the grunting deer because I would see his antlers move from each side of the tree as he looked around. He stood there for what seemed like an hour when suddenly a hen turkey decided it was time to fly down from her roost. She landed within 5 yds of him! I thought Oh no.....he’s going to split anytime now. He surprised me and turned and looked at her. She began to walk away. He took a couple steps in the direction she was traveling which put him broadside at 17 yards or so. I told myself now was my chance. I drew and shot. It was a horrible shot! The arrow landed two feet in front of him and about two feet low. A complete miss! He reacted to the thud of the arrow hitting the ground and took a couple leaps forward and stopped, facing directly away from me at about 30 yards. I was completely frazzled at this point. I was ticked off I had just blown a shot at the biggest buck of my life but thankful I had missed him completely. I collected myself while he watched that hen turkey feed down the ridge straight away from us (thank you Miss Turkey!!). I grabbed another arrow and prepared for the possibility of another shot. Just then he turned to his left and began walking. He was angling slightly my way and would end up in a shooting lane just to my left at about 23 yards. I watched as he entered that lane and made a soft bleat with my mouth. He stopped perfectly in that lane. I gave him a moment to recover from that bleat and told myself to pick a spot. I remember looking at a spot just behind his left shoulder and seeing the arrow heading in that direction. I don't remember the shot sequence at all. Just before impact with him I thought I saw the fletching of my arrow deflect just a little then the impact occurred. He took off and I remember seeing the arrow fall to the ground. I thought I had struck him in the upper leg right at the body line. I was a wreck! He stopped about 40 yards out in front of me looking back in the direction where the shot had just occurred. I noticed he had his left leg drawn up and wouldn’t put his foot down. I had missed the spot I was aiming for. Worse yet, I just wounded him. He stood there for what seemed like forever. He took a couple steps forward and I noticed he limped. I was instantly disgusted in myself. I had completely missed a chip shot at 17 yards then wounded him on my second shot at 23 yards. He eventually turned and limped down the ridge. I could just barely make him out down in the bottoms. He walked around down there a bit then I eventually lost him. My emotions were all over the place. It was mainly anger and disgust I was feeling though. I couldn't believe this had just happened.
I hung my bow back on the hook and began to sit down. As I sat I caught movement to my left. It was a smaller buck. He walked right to the area I had just shot at that buck and smelled the arrow that was lying on the ground. He about came out of his skin!! He took off like a race horse. This made me chuckle for a moment. I took my phone from my pocket and checked the time. It was 8:20am. I began texting my friends what had just happened. Of course they were in disbelief too. I chose to sit till 9am. Once 9am rolled around I got down and retrieved my first arrow. As I walked over to the second arrow I suddenly noticed that all that was laying there was the fletched section of the arrow, about 10 inches or so. I scanned the area and a mere 5 feet in the direction the buck had run was the other half, coated in blood. I could see where the buck had run by the kicked up leaves. I could also see the beginning of a decent blood trail. I immediately backed out. I called a few of my buddies and told them the news. One of them suggested I contact a good friend of his who owns a tracking dog. He volunteered to call her first and told her the story. He then gave me her number to call. Kim was her name. Our conversation was brief and she felt confident in my shot and told me to begin tracking. However, if I needed her to give her a call and she or he husband John would head my way.
A few of my friends gathered at 1:30pm and we began to track. The blood trail was AWESOME!! We were tripping over one another to see who was going to find the deer first. The blood trail was easy to follow until we entered into a thicker area about 100yds from where I shot him. That is where we lost the blood. As we tried to recover the blood trail it began to rain. It was about a 15 minute down pour. We continued to search for more blood but didn’t find a drop. My friends suggested I call for the tracking dog. I contacted Kim and told her what we had encountered. She agreed to send John and their dog Cheetah my way to assist.
Kim’s husband, John, arrived with Cheetah. John was briefed with the story on the way to the stand. Cheetah was set on the blood trail and off she went. I was feeling confident. Cheetah got to the area where we had lost blood and seemed to lose interest. John continued to encourage Cheetah to locate the deer but she seemed to just want to play. This went on for a little while when finally John looked at me and said, “Sorry Chad but this doesn’t look good. I think you may have had a muscle hit somewhere in that upper leg area. This deer isn’t dead.” Needless to say I was saddened again. We left the woods and returned to my house.
My friends had family obligations that night and left, except for my buddy Charlie. He looked at me and said, “I’m not convinced that deer isn’t dead! He lost way to much blood already. We have about 3 hours of daylight left, let’s go look some more. What do we have to lose?” I agreed. My 10 year old son, Jaxen, joined us. Our plan was to start about 300 yards north of where we lost the blood earlier and walk towards that spot. We worked our way into the woods and we weren’t in there 15 minutes when Charlie shouted, “I got blood! Lots of blood!” Jaxen and I joined him and sure enough there was a solid blood trail that was easy to follow. We couldn’t believe it! We began to follow the blood which eventually led into a large thicket. Charlie and I continued to look at one another as we tracked in disbelief that we haven’t found this deer yet. We had only traveled a short distance into this thicket when we heard a deer flush. The three of us ducked down and Jaxen asked if I thought it was him. I began to stand and looked in the direction the deer had ran and sure enough it was him. I could see him walking away from us. He was limping too. It was now 6:00pm. Ten hours after I had shot him. We waited until he was out of sight and immediately backed out of the woods. During the ride back to my house we made plans to return at first light in the morning.
Needless to say it was a restless night. However, I was confident that if the blood trail continued the way it was, we would find my buck dead within 100 yards from where we had jumped him. A couple of my friends tried to convince me to go back in there that night but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to push him and ruin any chances for a recovery.
My buddies, Brock, Charlie, Josh and David arrived at 7:30 the next day. My son, Jaxen, joined us on the track too. We all headed out to where Charlie, Jaxen and I stopped tracking the night before. The blood trail was easy to follow. We had gone approximately 100 yards from where we had jumped him when I stopped and said to the guys, “What do you think?” Josh and Brock replied, “We have never tracked a deer that bled this much or traveled this far and not found it.” This helped my confidence and we continued to follow the blood trail. The trail led us to the edge of a picked bean field. The blood had seemed to just stop there at the edge of the woods and the bean field. Charlie continued out into the field to try and pick up the blood while the rest of us attempted to look for blood in the timber. I finally found the trail again. The buck had turned around and walked back the way he came and began to parallel the field edge. After a short distance we came upon his first bed. It was full of blood! I could see where he had exited the bed and the blood trail became more discernible. He went a short distance and laid down again. This bed was blood soaked also. The blood trail from this bed was as easy to follow as the first one. We continued on the trail when David stopped us and indicted that he had seen some deer running just in front of us. He didn’t see the buck but we chose to pause for a bit. We collected our thoughts and re-evaluated the blood trail. The blood was dry so we knew that we were not pushing the deer and continued on. We had only gone a short distance when David indicated that he spotted him. My heart about jumped out of my chest! I still couldn’t see him when David said he’s lying just ahead and he appears to be dead. The 6 of us raced ahead to him. I couldn’t believe it. There he laid and my emotions were crazy. I’ll have to admit I shed a tear or two. The deer was absolutely beautiful!
We were all excited! It was as awesome feeling. The buck had traveled what we estimated to be 500 yards. He had actually circled back towards the stand which I had shot him from and died about 200 yards from it. The arrow had entered just in front of the left shoulder cutting a few of the arteries that fed the top of his hart and nicked his esophagus. Although not the desired shot we all like, the end result was the same. Had Charlie not been convinced that the deer wasn’t fatally hit, I probably would not have tracked the deer again that night (or the next day). Persistence pays off!
Sorry for the long read....but it's a great buck and a lot of things took place.
Topic: Persistance (story on page 4) (Read 1180 times)
