One Down

It was Oct. 27, 2015 and I was hunting a new stand I had found this year in Orange.  I had numerous big bucks on camera and video through out the summer and on Saturday I had found 5 fresh scrapes.

I went in around 2 PM and it was mild and the leaves were very loud.  The area where my stand is has mountain laurel all around and I can see about 50 yards straight in front of me.  The entire area is thick and some places you can't even walk through.

About 5:15 I heard a deer walking in the leaves.  I knew it was close so I stood up and grabbed my bow.  I looked to my left and I could see the body of a deer walking through the mountain laurel.  I couldn't tell what it was but as it got closer I could see a fork on the left side.  I wasn't certain but I didn't think he had one on the right side.

I had some James Valley scrape gel out in a near by scrape and he could smell it.  He walked right into an opening and stopped about ten yards away broad side.  I drew and released.  The lumen nock never lit up and I couldn't see the arrow go.

 I use a string tracker and it seemed that it had gone out but when the deer took off the string was not moving.

The deer ran about 100 mph straight ahead for 40 yards and stopped.  When it stopped it just stood there and then slowly walked off.  It looked like he went down into the ravine filled with mountain laurel.  I was certain I had drilled this deer but I have never seen one run like that and then stop.

I couldn't see my arrow sticking out of the ground and I couldn't see any blood.  I waited half an hour and got down.  There was no blood or arrow where he was standing.  The string was broke and hanging in the mountain laurel.  Not knowing where I hit it I left it till morning.

In the morning my father and my wife went in with me.  I went to where I last saw it and found a few tiny specks of blood.  We spread out and within minutes Lisa yelled she found it.  The buck had been shot through the rib cage and the arrow passed through it going right through the liver.  It didn't go 75 yards.  It's not a monster but I don't care.  It's a 2 pt and it weighed in at 132 LBs at Grr gear.

and it begins...

It's now October 28th and the archery season opened on October 19th. I have only been out once and that was on opening day. I saw nothing but a coyote in the morning and had a doe walk in at 5:30pm. She came into the scrapes I was sitting on and gave me multiple easy 15yd shot opportunities, but I don't have a doe tag (of course).
    Within the last few days a few friends were able to connect on some smaller bucks and a couple were able to connect on nice bucks yesterday evening and this morning. A weather front bringing rain moved in this afternoon, so i think the deer were moving a bit prior to the front. Its supposed to rain hard tonight and tomorrow before giving way to a couple days of cold weather. I was supposed to start my time off on Saturday (Halloween) but the idea of this cold weather following the rain forced me to take Friday off and start a day early...one more day of work and then game-on.
  I was able to get out and check my cams on Sunday and it seems that October 22nd-24th seems to have been the trigger dates for deer to start moving more and hitting scrapes a bit. I was able to get a few bucks on scrapes. Below I have included some videos, the first is the doe walking into the scrape on opening day as I was in the stand 15 yards away. The others are some bucks I would love to see during the season.