Well I'm not going to lie - this hunt wasn't pretty and I'm extremely lucky to have recovered this animal. The story is long and drawn out so if you don't want to read skip down to photos at the end. Sunday morning I had the perfect conditions to hunt the same stand where I killed my buck on 10/18. Almost zero wind moving to SSW after sunrise, temps in the 20's and clear skies. For those who were out in the Midwest it was one of the mornings we dream about all year. An hour after sunrise I hadn't seen or heard any activity so I hit rattling antlers together and they echoed through the valley in a way that just brings a smile to your face. Something about those clear, calm, frosty mornings seems to make the antlers sound so much better than usual. No sooner did I hang up my antlers and turn my cameras off as I heard a deer coming in. I turned the camera back on, grabbed my bow and noticed a body moving through some thick trees about 40 yards away. The issue was going to be that he was headed directly to me on a trail that runs almost underneath my stand. When we hung this stand in the spring we didn't realize this trail was there however after hunting it in the fall I said to myself we need to move this next year just in case a deer comes down that trail. My worst case scenario was about to unfold. As the deer broke cover about 25 yards out I immediately recognized him as a nice 3 year old 8 point we had pictures of that I was calling Slick. With two small kids at home and a wife whose patience was running on empty I decided he was a great buck to tag and would be a fitting end to my "comeback" season, so I prepared for the shot. Now the one thing I don't like about calling in general is when the deer comes in they're on alert and looking for the source of the noise. I much prefer a calm deer moving on natural travel patterns if I can get it. However that's not the case here as this buck is looking for the two deer he heard fighting. At 12 yards he stops to investigate the scene and immediately notices a large mass that doesn't quite belong in the tree right in front of him. He begins to get a little spooky but like bucks typically do he doesn't bolt out of the county, he starts a carefully calculated retreat. As he begins to turn around I push my camera over, zoom in and draw back. At this point he's under 15 yards and down hill from me which puts me at 25 or so feet above him. He's facing almost directly away as I come to full draw. My first instinct is to put the arrow right through the top of his back and drop him in his tracks. However I immediately hear the YouTube comments complaining in the back of my mind so I opt for a shot that should enter around the diaphram/liver, pass through the lung(s) and hopefully out the heart near the bottom of his chest cavity. It's an iffy shot but at that range I'm confident I can pull it off. So I settle the pin just to the right of his spine and touch the shot off. Immediately on impact I know the shot is too far up - entering between the shoulders and coming out the brisket. He mule kicks and runs off. I lose sight after about 60 yards and can't hear anything after 100. Right away I know the hit isn't great but hope that the large hole left by the Spitfire Maxx clipped a vein, artery or wind pipe on it's way out and he's down quickly. I wait an hour to retrieve my arrow, which is buried 6 inches into the dirt where he stood. Sign on the arrow is so-so. Not great, but not terrible. I find little to no blood for the first 15 yards then he seems to open up and be bleeding pretty good. I decide to back out for at least 2 hours. My immediate thought was that either I caught enough going out his neck to put him down quickly, or he was going to live. I was doubtful that I caught any lung at all. I come back at 10:30 which puts me at 3 hours after the shot. I take up the trail which has good blood with bubbles in it all the way to the property line. Blood is easy to follow and I'm hopeful he's close. At this point he crosses a fence onto the neighbor's. I call and leave a message for him to see if it's okay to continue the track. 30 min later he calls from his tree (he's hunting at the time) and says to go for it. At 11:30, 4 hours after the hit, I've gone a total of 200 yards through timber and into a CRP field where I lose blood. Around this time my buddy Troy Spolum shows up to help track. To make this long story somewhat shorter we were running without blood and grid searching. I had texted the other neighbor next door and he gave me permission to look on his farm as nobody was hunting that afternoon. On a whim we go in there and find blood where he crossed a deep draw. We track through his timber and into more CRP where we lose it again. At around 3:30 we're giving up hope and decide to check one last little finger before calling it quits. Now 8 hours after the hit we jump him out of his bed. Great. After he jumped up we had good blood again so we decided to keep pushing a little further to get an idea where he was headed. We end up at the edge of the 4th piece of property where we stop the track and attempt to obtain permission, and thankfully we get it. At this point we're done for Sunday's track. It's getting dark and he needs time to expire. Monday morning I filmed Troy until around 10 am then met up with Todd and another friend who were going to help us. We went back to last blood, followed it and within 150 yards we found the buck dead in his bed. As I thought the hit was too far forward and clipped the top of the right lung. Fortunately a very large, low exit hole caused enough damage for us to follow the trail and recover the animal. Lessons learned from this hunt: 1. Taking a questionable shot always leads to questionable results. My shot execution needed to be perfect to make that shot work and I failed. You can bet I will never attempt that again. I let my confidence get the best of me on this one and tried a shot that I should not have taken. Poor decision on my part. I own it and deserve all the criticism I'm sure to take. 2. It's always good to know your neighbors. We tracked this deer for a total of 3/4 mile through 4 properties. Without the cooperation of the neighbors he never would have been recovered. I'm extremely thankful everyone granted us the permission we needed to continue the trail. 3. Get help if you can. Without Troy's calm, collected presence on this track we wouldn't have found this deer - plain and simple. As the hunter your emotions are getting the best of you. When you can't find blood you want to jump forward on the trail too quickly, or start grid searching when you believe hope is lost. Having someone there who isn't as emotional really helps keep you in check and makes sure you do the right thing. 4. Don't give up. I've been a part of a lot of trailing jobs in my life and IMO after 300 yards your odds of recovery are pretty slim. However if you have blood and you're confident the deer is dead you owe it to the deer, and to yourself, to continue until all hope is gone. With that said, so concludes my 2015 hunting season here in IL. A pair of bucks from the same stand 3 weeks apart after going buckless for the last 3 years. It didn't end as cleanly as I wanted, but sometimes getting lucky isn't always a bad thing. I've had my share of bad luck over the years - it's about time some good luck came in for a change.
Well done and a huge congrats Justin on a great year and wish more people worked that hard to find a deer!
Congrats on the buck !! Glad it worked out... especially the part where the other landowners let you on their land. Tim
That was a great read, Justin, it should have been an article. Glad you were able to recover him and congrats on another nice kill!! It's a win/win when you learn a tough lesson through experience that resulted in a good outcome. Way cooler than shooting trophy does like some people...
Congrats Justin! I love learning from other people and how they follow up a shot. I learned a valuable lesson this year tracking my brother's buck. Thought it was a dead deer for sure and couldn't believe when we jumped him 6 hours after the shot. Plenty of bubbly blood on the first 100 yards of the track before we lost blood for a bit and jumped him from 30 yards away when we had been in the area for 5 minutes. I knew he was hurt bad, but instincts said to back out and wait until morning. The neighbor encouraged us to go after him a few hours later toward dusk so we wouldn't lose the blood trail. I talked my brother out of going after him that night and we found him the next morning about 300 yards from the original shot and about 100 yards from where we jumped him. He hit lower than he thought and back a tad so he only got the back of the one lung. Sometimes blood trails are deceiving!
Congrats Justin, great buck. Isn't it funny how our seasons went identical. For our 1st bucks we both smoked 8 points and sprayed blood all over the place with less than a 50 yard recovery. And for our second bucks we both made questionable shots that ended successfully. Just seems things turned out very similar for us. Just my observation anyway. All that aside congrats on a successful recovery and a great buck. What are we gonna do now that we aren't in a tree???
