Had an awesome hunt this morning! Lots of chasing & plenty of action.
Had a basket rack come right under me about 7:10 and about the time I was saying to myself, "Why can't this one be a shooter?" I looked up and saw a medium buck and a shooter about 200 yards away right next to the road.
At first I didn't quite know what I should do since I knew if I called the basket rack was going to blow out of there, but after a quick assessment of the situation I figured this might be my only shot since the road is fairly heavily traveled by people out looking for deer/sight seeing. I hoped if/when the basket rack below me blew out of there, he'd figure a bigger one chased him off.
I gave a couple grunts and the medium buck looked up, but the bigger one paid little to no attention (the basket rack did, indeed, blow out of there). I picked up my horns & rattled a little & that DEFINITELY got his attention! I gave them about another 5 seconds & that was all it took...he was coming in on a string!
There were a lot of places he could have went & other deer that have come from that same direction have done a lot of different things, but this one read the script & came right where I wanted him to & stopped broadside at 30 yards on the path that the basket rack took on his way out. I was already at full draw & let 'er fly. He took off through the 6' tall switch grass and I lost sight of him. I could see the grass moving about 125 yards in front of me & heard him laboring for air, but I never did see him go down. The hit looked like it might have been a touch far back, so I got down, found my arrow, which has passed through & looked for blood. There was a decent amount, and it was bright pink but it wasn't pouring out so I backed out.
I jacked my back up a few days ago & was just healthy enough to sit in the stand, but knew I shouldn't be dragging a deer, so I gathered up a few buddies and my 2 girls & we headed out about 10:30...a bit nervous, but with high hopes. We went to the site of the shot & started to follow the blood, but my heart started to sink when it all but quit after only 20 yards. We started to grid search for blood and I went ahead a bit, slowly working in the direction I had last seen him in the grass. After about 10 minutes and not hearing anyone say they'd found more blood, I was getting fairly concerned...I took another step & there he was! It ended up being a double lung shot but we backtracked a little & he just didn't bleed much for some reason.
I'm just VERY grateful I found him & that I had good buddies to help with the recovery & that my girls got to be there as well! So dang blessed!
Had a basket rack come right under me about 7:10 and about the time I was saying to myself, "Why can't this one be a shooter?" I looked up and saw a medium buck and a shooter about 200 yards away right next to the road.
At first I didn't quite know what I should do since I knew if I called the basket rack was going to blow out of there, but after a quick assessment of the situation I figured this might be my only shot since the road is fairly heavily traveled by people out looking for deer/sight seeing. I hoped if/when the basket rack below me blew out of there, he'd figure a bigger one chased him off.
I gave a couple grunts and the medium buck looked up, but the bigger one paid little to no attention (the basket rack did, indeed, blow out of there). I picked up my horns & rattled a little & that DEFINITELY got his attention! I gave them about another 5 seconds & that was all it took...he was coming in on a string!
There were a lot of places he could have went & other deer that have come from that same direction have done a lot of different things, but this one read the script & came right where I wanted him to & stopped broadside at 30 yards on the path that the basket rack took on his way out. I was already at full draw & let 'er fly. He took off through the 6' tall switch grass and I lost sight of him. I could see the grass moving about 125 yards in front of me & heard him laboring for air, but I never did see him go down. The hit looked like it might have been a touch far back, so I got down, found my arrow, which has passed through & looked for blood. There was a decent amount, and it was bright pink but it wasn't pouring out so I backed out.
I jacked my back up a few days ago & was just healthy enough to sit in the stand, but knew I shouldn't be dragging a deer, so I gathered up a few buddies and my 2 girls & we headed out about 10:30...a bit nervous, but with high hopes. We went to the site of the shot & started to follow the blood, but my heart started to sink when it all but quit after only 20 yards. We started to grid search for blood and I went ahead a bit, slowly working in the direction I had last seen him in the grass. After about 10 minutes and not hearing anyone say they'd found more blood, I was getting fairly concerned...I took another step & there he was! It ended up being a double lung shot but we backtracked a little & he just didn't bleed much for some reason.
I'm just VERY grateful I found him & that I had good buddies to help with the recovery & that my girls got to be there as well! So dang blessed!
