So week 3 started out rainy and windy, but the weather cleared on Tuesday afternoon and the wind which had been blowing hard, calmed down, and shifted out of the north.With the winds shifting between NNE and NNW, I was going to be back in the treestand that I missed the 8 point out of.
On Tuesday the weather cleared around noon and I felt good about deer movement so I headed out to the stand. That eve I had a lone adult doe walk out of the mountain laurel in front before dark. She was feeding, and came right into my mock scrape and offered a beautiful broadside shot (if I had a doe tag).
I climbed back in on Wednesday morning and saw nothing, but had tracks all around the stand and in my scrape. I had no childcare for that eve so I did not hunt.
On Thursday morning I headed back in, before light a deer came down off the hill behind me and walked inside of 20 yds directly in front of me...in the early morning darkness (I couldn't see a thing). I believe it was a buck due to its cadence, the fact that it didn't seem to care how much noise it made. During this dark encounter the wind was completely in my favor and I don't believe the deer had any idea that I was there. Later that morning I had bobcat chase a snowshoe hair directly under my platform, and 20 minutes later the bobcat came back (empty-handed), and again walked directly underneath my stand. Although this wasn't a deer, It was still pretty cool.
On Thursday evening I again had no childcare and was supposed to pick up my daughter. I just had a feeling: 1. I had a dark encounter that morn. 2. A friend had shot a 7 point this morn 3. Another friend had shot a nice 8 the night before...movement had been slow for weeks but definitely seemed to be picking up. I made a quick phone call to the the in-laws and had my daughter picked up so I could hunt.
THURSDAY Nov. 15th. Evening
I got into the stand at about 2:30pm, the weather was a cool 35 degrees and the wind was almost nothing out of the NNE. It was very quiet and as I sat I thought I could hear brush breaking out in the mountain laurel. As I chatted with a friend about the season via cell phone texting I mentioned to him that I thought there was a moose in the laurel. The area down in the laurel is a place that I have bumped moose out of before. The sounds happened periodically for the better bart of an hour or so. At around 4pm I again heard the loud sound of brush breaking, but this time it sounded a bit closer. I put the phone away and pulled out the calls. I gave a series of about 3 doe bleats, followed by about 5 soft grunts. After about 5 minutes went by I saw movement at about 100yds, I could see a very dark body on the edge of the laurel. I immediately became a little discouraged thinking that it was indeed a moose. The animal took a few steps toward me and raised its head, I quickly realized that this was not a moose, and was actually a big buck.
As the buck got closer I recognized it as a big nine point that we had plenty of pics and video of. As it worked slowly closer and closer, I continued to scan ahead of the buck to see if he was going to make the necessary turns to put him in front of me. With every step it appeared he may get to me. There was one last turn he needed to make to get into range by passing inside of a particular pine tree. The run split at the tree, if he came on my side, he would almost definitely reach me, behind the tree and he would probably pass without a shot at out 40yds. He made the turn inside the tree and I knew I would probably get a crack, the problem was he was coming in straight at me.
The buck worked to 35, 30, 25yds....I drew....20. He was now standing directly in front of me, facing me in my mock scrape. The problem was he was standing in chute of laurel with no where to go except directly toward me, or back the way he came. As I waited I decided I had to shoot (this was the biggest deer I have ever had in front of me)...and trust me that I know how bad a shot this is. I made the decision to shoot this deer in the center of the chest, just then he turn slightly to his left, exposing his right side slightly. I took aim and let go. The lumenock lit the way to a point on the buck right side shoulder (or so I thought).
The deer whirled and took too large bounds and stopped about 50yds away. It looked to me as if the arrow went where I wanted it, but I did not see a lot of penetration. The deer limped away and was out of sight within a few minutes. Did I get penetration, did I get one lung, did I hit his shoulder...I didn't know but I did know that I was going to give him all night before I went looking. After a sleepless night I went back along with my brother and dad to see what happened. We found blood quickly and for about 100yds it was heavy...the depressing part to me was that there was no bubbles in the blood (which to me meant I probably did not reach a lung). we followed drops for the next 200-300yds. He never once bedded, or acted hurt. At this point we had run out of options but had not found my arrow. I decided to go back to square one and look for the arrow. I found the arrow within 50yds of where the shot occurred. The arrow showed a whopping 4 1/2 inches of penetration and the broadhead was broken off. The insert and arrow were complete and the broadhead was broken off inside the insert. This told me that it must have lodged in something very hard ( a shoulder). This was the end of this search!
This season went from bad...ie: not seeing any deer movement for the first week or more. To worse ie: missing the first deer I had seen by hitting a tree. To absolutely horrible ie: I just hit the biggest deer I have ever seen in the woods poorly, and did not kill him and possible even wounded him badly. Does it get any worse, as bad as this season has been for deer movement, if I had killed the two deer I had seen, I would have killed a nice buck and the buck of a lifetime. Do I need to say anymore? The nine point that I had hit, was the one pictured in the scrape from the week 1 update.
I also found out that almost everyone who hunted this eve, had either got a shot, or had an encounter..the rut was finally on.
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