What can i say, luck was on my side December 29, 2012. As you read this short story, keep in mind I do put endless amounts of time in the woods studying and watching deer but wouldn't like to attribute this hunt to those factors. However, I attribute most of this hunt to being in the right place at the right time. Of course I did have to make the shot, so I do credit myself at least to some degree... I have never had anything like this ever happen to me and can't imagine this ever happening again, so I consider this to probably be my hunt of a lifetime! I went out to hunt a farm I've had permission to hunt on for a couple of years, but just simply never have. I got the idea to hunt this place having not seen the caliber of deer I expected where I have some good food on another farm. I needed a change and decided to give it a try or at least figure it out for future use. This was a total random idea on a day I wasn't even planning on going out to hunt. Having never hunted or hung a camera up on this farm, I had no idea how to go about hunting it or what I was even hunting for that matter. I started to walk in order to get to the other end of the farm to do some scouting in preparation of a future hunt and to try and figure out what the deer were doing. 30 minutes after setting foot out of the truck and walking towards the fields, I stumbled upon this deer making his way through the timber as I'm standing in a creek bottom looking up at him from 100 yds. away. I still can't figure out how he didn't see me ??? I won't tell the rest of the story as it gets rather long. I recovered the deer the next morning (because of a suspected liver hit, which proved correct), but the coyotes found him first and did a number on him as you can see... There was another shot involved as I did get a second shot as he was bedded. I couldn't tell if I hit him a second time because he jumped up and ran again. Apparently the second time he took off running was the death run, having hit through the neck and probably all organs as he was bedded (found out where I actually hit after examining him during recovery the next morning). Now, the reason why I left him overnight was because i didn't want to push him anymore with thoughts of a liver hit (clotting, no more blood, and the possibility I didn't hit him on the second shot because of no fresh blood after he jumped up and ran again) so I backed out for the night. It was just too thick to want to gamble jumping him again and never seeing the deer again. When I actually walked up to him the next day after a short tracking job (less than 50 yds from where I jumped him the second time, probably 100 yds total from initial first hit), he was a lot bigger than expected! I didn't have much time to look at him when I walked up on him before I shot because I had to literally lay prone on the creek bank and shoot uphill over a fence within a matter of a minute or two because of the tiny shooting window I had to shoot through. Luckily he fortunately happened to walk right through that one spot and I was able to get a shot off as he was moving. Not a text book situation, but I made it work! Hunt of a lifetime, deer of a lifetime. Still hard to stop thinking about how it all happened and how fast it happened... Scores 196 6/8" Gross Non-Typical, 17 pts.
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