bowman13
New Member
Sorry for the long read, but there were too many details I just couldn't edit out.
Thursday evening of the 25th I was finally able to get into “the” stand. The same stand I was blessed enough to shoot a giant 165in bruiser on Halloween last year. It’s in the fence line of a secluded corn field and a piece of epic timber. Each year as soon as the corn is harvested the deer just pore out of the timber in the evenings. I knew leaving school it was going to be a good evening, with the front pushing through earlier in the day. As soon as I get settled in the stand I hear this awful high pitch shrieking sound to the west. Turns out the neighboring landowner decided he was going to try his luck at calling in a fall turkey from his old grain bin turned ground blind. Just my luck! He carried on for a solid hour before calling it quits. It didn’t take long after he left for some does and little bucks to work their way out into the field. At about 6:05 I heard something behind me and I see this little 1 ½, then I look a little further down the trail and see this guy.
Game on! The little buck had apparently been dogging a doe and they hopped the fence and came right under my tree. This guy got to the logging road just on the other side of the fence and stopped, of course just as all mature bucks do, he doesn’t follow the little buck and doe. Instead he turns and walks straight west, away from me, and for a second I thought he had left; but sure enough about 40 yards to the west he pops out into the field. He turns and starts walking right back at me. He conveniently slowed down when he walked into my shooting lane so I didn’t have to stop him. 18 yards, just barely quartering to, I settle the pin behind the shoulder and hit the release. The arrow hit right where it was supposed to. That sure felt good! He took off and stopped at 45 yards, at this point I have my phone out filming him expecting him to tip over right there, but he slowly walks off. After that I start second guessing everything about the shot. Kicking myself for not trying to lob another arrow at him. Then about 2-3 minutes later out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white and brown and a crash to the south east of me in the timber. My immediate thought was that he had just crashed but I couldn’t see him for sure. After waiting the allotted 30 minutes, I got down to see if I could find the arrow and then follow the blood trail over to where I thought I saw him pile up. When I got to the point of impact there was no arrow and no blood. I walked along where I saw him walk post shot and I found a little bit of blood, I marked it and before backing out I pulled a loop and checked to see if it was him that I thought I had seen…….no deer. At that point I left to get more help and flashlights. An hour later we were able to find decent blood. The trail was weak in the beginning but the farther in we went the better it got. 100 yards into the timber, there he was piled into a heap! The arrow went in just behind his right shoulder and exited in the middle of his left side. An absolute tank of a deer, probably the biggest whitetail, size wise, I’ve ever seen on the hoof. After some pictures we began the worst drag job I have ever gone through! We had three guys and we still struggled to get this thing to the car. We found him at 9:30 and we didn’t make it back to car till 12:45am. Oh well it all add to the adventure of the hunt! I’m beyond pumped to punch my tag on this mature, 146 3/8 stud of a whitetail! Good luck to the rest of you, things are just starting to get good!
Thursday evening of the 25th I was finally able to get into “the” stand. The same stand I was blessed enough to shoot a giant 165in bruiser on Halloween last year. It’s in the fence line of a secluded corn field and a piece of epic timber. Each year as soon as the corn is harvested the deer just pore out of the timber in the evenings. I knew leaving school it was going to be a good evening, with the front pushing through earlier in the day. As soon as I get settled in the stand I hear this awful high pitch shrieking sound to the west. Turns out the neighboring landowner decided he was going to try his luck at calling in a fall turkey from his old grain bin turned ground blind. Just my luck! He carried on for a solid hour before calling it quits. It didn’t take long after he left for some does and little bucks to work their way out into the field. At about 6:05 I heard something behind me and I see this little 1 ½, then I look a little further down the trail and see this guy.
Game on! The little buck had apparently been dogging a doe and they hopped the fence and came right under my tree. This guy got to the logging road just on the other side of the fence and stopped, of course just as all mature bucks do, he doesn’t follow the little buck and doe. Instead he turns and walks straight west, away from me, and for a second I thought he had left; but sure enough about 40 yards to the west he pops out into the field. He turns and starts walking right back at me. He conveniently slowed down when he walked into my shooting lane so I didn’t have to stop him. 18 yards, just barely quartering to, I settle the pin behind the shoulder and hit the release. The arrow hit right where it was supposed to. That sure felt good! He took off and stopped at 45 yards, at this point I have my phone out filming him expecting him to tip over right there, but he slowly walks off. After that I start second guessing everything about the shot. Kicking myself for not trying to lob another arrow at him. Then about 2-3 minutes later out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white and brown and a crash to the south east of me in the timber. My immediate thought was that he had just crashed but I couldn’t see him for sure. After waiting the allotted 30 minutes, I got down to see if I could find the arrow and then follow the blood trail over to where I thought I saw him pile up. When I got to the point of impact there was no arrow and no blood. I walked along where I saw him walk post shot and I found a little bit of blood, I marked it and before backing out I pulled a loop and checked to see if it was him that I thought I had seen…….no deer. At that point I left to get more help and flashlights. An hour later we were able to find decent blood. The trail was weak in the beginning but the farther in we went the better it got. 100 yards into the timber, there he was piled into a heap! The arrow went in just behind his right shoulder and exited in the middle of his left side. An absolute tank of a deer, probably the biggest whitetail, size wise, I’ve ever seen on the hoof. After some pictures we began the worst drag job I have ever gone through! We had three guys and we still struggled to get this thing to the car. We found him at 9:30 and we didn’t make it back to car till 12:45am. Oh well it all add to the adventure of the hunt! I’m beyond pumped to punch my tag on this mature, 146 3/8 stud of a whitetail! Good luck to the rest of you, things are just starting to get good!
Love it!!
