The next morning was a wet one as we sat for only a couple of hours before deciding to call it a day and dry off. I actually had a shooter buck come within 20 yards of the tree stand...20 minutes before shooting time. I also had 2 fawns walk by the stand and discovered 2 does bedded across a creek on the opposing hill side. That was enough to keep me entertained for the morning, but I was disappointed to once again leave with a quiver full of clean arrows.
After taking Abigail to her first basketball practice of the season, I headed for the cabin to meet my friend, Justin for another few days of hunting. The plan was to hunt Saturday evening and then head home on Monday night to regroup for a day. When I arrived, I quickly changed into my hunting clothes. With a SE wind, I knew that I needed to hunt the DNR/County line stand where I shot a buck on November 4, 2017. The nearly 1 mile walk from the cabin put me in the tree stand around 4:00 pm and just a little while later, I had a yearling buck walk by at about 30 yards.
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| View from the DNR/County line stand |
Even with the slow evening, my spirits were still high as we headed into Sunday. The winds were forecast to be out of the NW which was perfect to hunt the Ridge tree stand (my favorite stand on the property) as well as the Fence Gap stand where I had so much luck the previous weekend. Sadly, we woke up to pouring rain and decided to wait it out in the cabin. The rain slowed a bit around 8:00 am so I quickly went out to gather the trial camera cards. While heading to the camera on the big field, I actually came across a big buck that was out cruising through the food plot. He was facing the other way and did not see or hear me so I quickly made my way back to the cabin. We got ready to go and headed out in the sprinkles with the intention of sitting for the remainder of the day.
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| Rain rain go away |
After the previous weekend, I had decided to move the tree stand about 30 yards to the north where most of the activity was. I actually had deer moving passed me as I was putting the stand back up and then had a doe, fawn, and 2 young bucks come through as I was pulling my bow up into the tree. I had only been out for about 45 minutes and it was obvious that it was going to be a great day.
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| Small buck 5 yards behind the stand less than 5 minutes after I got up in the tree stand |
At about 2:15, a fawn came directly up the fence line from the north and crossed directly in front of my at 15 yards. About 15 minutes later, while I'm munching on the remainder of my lunch, I see more movement from the north and instantly reach for my bow. A large 10 point buck crossed the fence in the same spot as the fawn and headed straight for my tree stand. He finally turned broadside and walked into my first shooting lane at about 10 yards. I drew back my bow and released far too soon. I was instantly overtaken with disgust as I watched the arrow hit the buck too far back. I had rushed my shot and for whatever reason, didn't wait for the buck to stop moving. The buck ran about 20 yards back the direction that he came from and then started walking North. He turned broadside about 75 yards away and I could see that not only did I shoot him about mid-body, but the shot was also very low, just above where the white of his belly meets the brown hair. Thinking it was most likely a gut or liver hit, I decided that I would not pursue him for quite awhile.
At about 3:45, I got a text from Justin saying that he had just shot a deer from the Ridge tree stand. I told him to stay where he was and that I would come to him. As I got down, I checked my arrow and noticed that it was covered completely in red, with no signs of stomach matter. This was a very good sign. The buck had actually left the way that I come and go from the stand, so one my way out, I decided to check for a blood trail and found that it was very easy to follow. I still didn't want to go after the buck right away, but did manage to locate where he left the woods about 150 - 200 yards from the stand and marked it to come back to later.
When I arrived on the ridge, Justin was still really excited. After he filled me in on the details, we unsuccessfully searched for blood near where the buck was standing. We ended up walking out of the ridge food plot to the South and found the arrow and started finding blood just before he crossed the ravine onto the public land. The arrow smelled really bad and was covered in stomach matter which meant that the deer was not shot well, but would certainly die so we decided to give him some time. We headed back to the cabin to eat supper, change, and wait. After a few hours passed, we headed after my deer as it was shot first. We quickly found the spot that I had marked in the dark and using a leap frog technique and my new spot light, we followed a blood trail about 75 yards into a 15-20 acre, shoulder high, CRP field. We circled out from last blood a couple of times but were unable to locate anymore. Doing a body search in the dark is not easy, so we opted to return at first light.
Next, we headed back after Justin's deer. We were able to follow a blood trail for about 50 yards onto the DNR land but then lost it. I had a pretty good idea where the deer was headed as we have shot many deer from this spot over the years, but with no blood, I didn't want to risk bumping the deer in the dark so we decided to save this track job until morning as well.
I'm pretty sure that neither of us slept well that night, and we got back out at first light the next morning. We were able to get back on a blood trail from Justin's deer for a little ways but then ended up losing it and doing a body search. It turned out that my guess from the night before was completely correct. I walked the bottom of the big ravine, while Justin walked the top of the ridge line and it only took me a couple of minutes to spot his deer laying dead just on the other side of the ravine.
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| Pointing to the white belly laying on the other side of the ditch |
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| Justin with his first bow kill |
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| Both of us were happy to get Justin's buck back to the cabin |
Justin was extremely proud of his first deer with a bow, and I was very glad that we were able to find it so easily. After the tough drag out of the woods it was off to go after the buck that I had shot. We were not able to find any more blood from my buck and ended up grid searching the entire CRP field as well as walking just inside all of the woods surrounding the field checking all ravines and hill sides for the rest of the morning and afternoon. We never ended up finding another drop of blood or the buck itself and I was devastated. This was the 2nd year in a row that I had arrowed a buck on November 4th and was unable to recover it. In hind sight, I'm guessing that with the shot being so low and the buck being so close to the tree, the angle of the shot essentially made it miss everything vital and skim the underside of his belly enough to make him bleed but not kill him.
I opted to skip the evening hunt as we were both exhausted and I knew that I still had a lot of hunting ahead of me. I gave myself the drive home to feel sorry for myself but then worked on getting my mind back to hunting.
I took Tuesday off from hunting, but headed back to the cabin with my neighbor, Brent, on Tuesday night to hunt all of Wednesday. I ended up sitting the entire day on the fence gap while Brent sat in the ridge stand. We both saw deer, but nothing that we were interested in shooting. I actually had a yearling buck walk directly passed my tree stand at 5 yards just a few minutes before shooting time ended. After dark, we headed for home discussing deer hunting the whole way.
With snow and a cold front moving in, I decided to head for the cabin on Thursday night instead of waiting for Friday. Dad called me and said that he was going to do the same and we both actually ended up driving through some snow to get there. It sure was cold for the weekend with some additional snow on Friday along with some extremely high winds. For the first time this season, deer movement was extremely slow. Dad actually had a couple of sits without seeing a single deer, and after grunting in a small buck on Saturday morning, I got blanked on Saturday evening myself. The one shinning moment of those 2 days came on Friday morning, while sitting in the fence gap stand, I saw the buck that I had shot the previous Sunday alive and well! He passed by at about 50 yards but I got a really good look at him and was 100% sure that it was him.
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| So much snow and wind |
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| Snow covered food plots |
After sitting in the snow and wind on Friday, then the extreme cold on Saturday, Sunday was forecast to warm up a little bit and have calm winds. Wind was out of the SW as dad and I headed out for our morning sit. I walked dad to a tree stand on the county ground and then proceeded on to the DNR/County line stand. A SW wind is a bit marginal for the stand, but this is probably the best morning stand location that we have due to the amount of bedding cover located across the primary ridge as well as the 2 secondary ridges that extend to the South. It also sits on a great pinch point to catch deer headed back to bed in the morning and to catch a buck cruising between doe bedding areas during the rut.
Shortly after sunrise a doe approached my stand from the back and ended up leaving the same direction before crossing into one of my shooting lanes. A couple hours later, I looked to my west to see a buck walking in from exactly where I expected. I quickly grabbed my bow but he ended up working further out to about 40 yards. 40 yards is my absolute maximum range for a shot, but I've practiced a lot at that distance this year so I decided to give it a try. My first attempt at trying to stop the deer resulted in his vitals being covered by a tree but I was able to stop him again after he began walking again. This buck was a 2 1/2 year old 8 point buck but at this point in my season I would have been happy to put my tag on him. Unlike the week prior, this time I took my time and calmed myself. As I released the arrow everything looked and felt great, in fact, I am able to say that my arrow went exactly where I was aiming. The only problem this time is that at the sound of my shot, the buck ducked and wheeled away to begin running. The result was a high hit in the back portion of the neck, just in front of the shoulder.
I assumed pretty quickly that the shot wasn't lethal but I held out hope while I sat in the stand for the next hour that maybe I caught an artery or it didn't hit as high as it appeared and I actually caught the top of his lungs. The blood trail was a good one for the first 75 - 100 yards but then dried up pretty quickly after that. Dad came over and helped me spend a couple of hours searching the primary ridge in the direction that the blood trail was headed, but as expected, we didn't find any more blood or the buck. Unless this buck ends up with some sort of infection from the wound, I'm 100% sure that he will be fine and recover from the shot.
Of course I was, and still am, very disappointed. This was my 2nd good opportunity to kill a buck during my week of hunting and both times ended without a deer on the ground. I obviously never go into a hunt intending to wound a deer, but I've been having a string of bad luck the past 2 years that I need to put an end to. The positive that I took away from the 2nd chance this year was that I did not repeat the same mistakes that were made a week prior. I learned from my mistakes and made a really good shot, I just had no way of knowing that the buck would react that quickly and that drastically to the sound of the shot. I think that going forward I am going to keep my shots to 30 yards and under when conditions are that calm. With essentially no wind, it was extremely quiet in the woods that morning and I'm thinking that the sound of my bow probably broke that silence like a freight train.
After returning to the cabin, I changed out of my sweaty clothes, had some lunch, and said good bye to dad before heading back out for one last hunt to finish off my first rut-cation. As I headed to a tree stand on the East side of the small field food plot I noticed that nearly all of the snow had melted. It ended up being a gorgeous evening to hunt. The sun was shining and it wasn't uncomfortably cold like the previous 2 days had been. Even though I wasn't feeling the best about my missed opportunities, I reflected on the week, and entire season so far and can say that it has been a great one. We have seen more deer and we have seen them more consistently then any of the first 6 years hunting down there.
As the evening came to a close, I had a group of turkeys work up the hill behind me and fly up into a large oak tree to roost. Then, with just a few minutes left, a small buck entered the plot from the south and gradually fed his way towards me working a scrape along the way. Right as he was about to step into a shooting lane I felt my phone start buzzing in my pocket to signify the end of shooting time. I very quietly started to pack up my stuff and sat in the tree stand for about 15 minutes while he worked his way further to the north. During that time, I heard at least 2 deer cross the ravine to my east and head up the hill towards me. They ended up running back the way they came when the heard me climbing down. With that, my first week of vacation was over. It was a pretty intense week with a lot of tree stand time, so to be honest, I was ready for a few days off to regroup before heading back out for more tree stand time.
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| My view for the last evening of my hunt This spot is going to be awesome come late season for sure |
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