First off, thanks to everyone on here and on other forums. I've spent hours reading and watching youtube videos. Hard work and dedication finally paid off. Now for the story. October 1st 2015 Central Illinois I went to bed last night thinking if I should hunt in this morning or not. I have only bow hunted a few years and a handful of times each year. This year I knew I was going to get a deer with the bow. I've been doing tons of reading and listening to Dan Infalt along with a lot of others. I did a lot of glassing from the field edges and roads the last few weeks. I did it morning and nights. I pretty much knew the times and locations where does would be. I arrived a little late, 6:00a.m. I debated if I should take the climber or not. I decided not to take the climber because I did not want to set it up in the dark. I have never used a climber and I figure it's best I not try and set it up in the dark. My only other option was to hunt a few ladder stands in different locations my friends set up or ground hunt. I ground hunted. I started walking and about 6:45 a.m. I spotted 3 deer. I ranged them at 100 yards. I knew good dang well I wasn't taking that shot! I slowly inched towards them in tall crp grass. My heart was racing so fast. I had never done this. I get closer and closer. I pull my range finder up again and they are at 80 yards. I stopped for several minutes to try and calm down. I keep going forward. It's fairly windy so I believe that helped cover my sound. I had also smoked my clothes the night before. (dunno if that played a part or not as in not getting busted) So I keep going and I range them again at 50 yards. I knew it was game time. I slowed down and took a few more steps. The big doe lifted her head and looked right at me. She looked for a minute straight it seemed like. I was thinking in my head, crap...this is it. The other two started looking at me. Next thing I know they get back to eating. I knew I had to make a move fast because I'm running out of time before they bust me. I keep walking and range them again. This time it was 30 yards. They look again and I bent down to hide in the grass. I began to waddle I guess you can call it. I didn't realize how far I had gone. I looked up and they were right in front of me. At this point my heart was racing I didn't know what to do. I froze. I pulled up the range finder very slow and ranged the biggest doe. She was at 10 yards. I put the range finder down and tried pulling my bow up as I stood up. I couldn't pull it back. My heart was racing so fast and I was so pumped up I could not pull it back for the life of me. They are all 3 just looking at me. I tried again and finally pulled it back. Set the pin and the rest is history. Got her right above the shoulder. She ran about 30 yards and dropped right in front of me. It was a moment I will never forget. I almost yelled in excitement I was so happy and proud of myself. The fun part was looking up videos on youtube on how to gut her since I had never done it myself. When I killed a buck with a shotgun years ago I had help gutting him. I got that accomplished and started dragging her back to the truck. Drug her myself for about a mile through tall CRP grass. I had half a mile to go and called some friends. Thankfully they came and helped me get her in the truck. Thanks to everyone who posts on here, and big thanks Dan Infalt. Now I'm on the hunt for a huge buck.
Thanks everyone! I'm going to continue to read and hoping I can get a hold of a nice buck before the season is over. I used a bee smoker and Hickory chips to smoke my clothes. I smoked everything including my bow/release. After I smoked everything I put the bow back in its case and my clothes in a tote until I was ready to hunt. Did it help? Eh, I don't know. In my opinion it did BUT I don't know if I'll do it again. I had a killer headache all day yesterday because all you can smell is smoke the whole time. I definitely didn't smoke my face mask. If I do end up doing it again I'll only smoke my boots/pants. I won't do my base layers, shirts, and hat.
Thanks again everyone and good luck to the hunters out right now! I won't be going out until Sunday afternoon. I'll be looking for a big buck
