It's been a couple days, but I wanted to share the story of my 2015 buck. I hunt NE Ohio, right on the fringe of where the suburbs hit rural farmland. My parents have 9 acres and the neighbors behind them have around 30 that we have permission to hunt. It's good hunting, but I'm always concerned with overhunting it. This year, that wasn't a concern. In July I got married and knew that my hunting time would take a huge hit. Fortunately for me, my wife is a nurse and works every other weekend. I have designated those weekends to be hunting weekends. This past weekend was one of these weekends. So Saturday morning I slipped into my stand in a sliver of timber that acts as a pinch point between my neighbors and the development behind them. First thing in the morning I had a deer under me as I'm setting up, then I missed a coyote and had two does come under me. As I was climbing down, I spotted a scrape 20 yards away. It was an eventful morning and I decided to head back in there for the evening hunt. That evening I slipped back into the stand. It was quite windy and the squirrels were out in force. Around 5:15 I looked to my left and behind me and saw a buck running in towards me. I immediately knew I wanted to shoot, stood, drew, bleated to stop him, judged the distance to be around 25, split the pins and let fly. I heard the arrow hit and it had that sound that all hunters want to hear. He took off and I watched him go out of sight, but didn't hear a crash. A couple minutes later, I climbed down and walked to the point of impact. Immediately, I saw gut material mixed with blood. I also found some brighter red blood. I thought maybe due to the hard quartering angle, I might have got vitals but backed out at that time. Around nine, it started to rain so my dad and I decided to risk pushing him and headed out to track. We followed good blood for about 75 yards and then came across a point in the field he ran into where it was evident that he bedded down. I immediately became sick to my stomach, we must have bumped him. I slowly began tracking him from the bed and went around a tuft of grass to the sight of him laying dead not five yards from the bed. The shot was actually not that bad, I caught liver due to the angle and was only a couple inches away from getting lung. It's by far the biggest buck I've killed behind my parents home where I've put all the time into managing the property. I have trail cam pictures of him as he is recognizable with his G2 kicker and split brow.This is my second year in a row tagging out in October. Prior to last year, I hadn't killed a buck with my bow since 2007. Last year I got busy and forgot to join the contest. After I shot last year's buck, I jokingly thought that I'd skip this year's contest too. After this success, I think I may be done for good!
Great buck. Don't have a clue what harvesting a good deer has to do with never joining the contest again...
It was a bit tongue in cheek. It has nothing to do with it other than coincidentally I've shot bucks the past two years I didn't join. I had a great time when I was in the contest, just never tagged a big one! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
Congrats on a fine buck! I did the same thing... missed the contest one year and shot the best bow buck of my life! haha.. that's just how it goes! Nice work
