Long Read, sorry I ramble a bit. It was beautiful day in the woods for me yesterday. Bright moon didn't need a light to the tree stand and had deer around literally from the time I stepped in the woods. My 100 yard walk through the woods that usually takes 2-3 minutes took 45 because of all the deer cruising by on my way to the stand. The is continued until 8:20 when I looked over my left shoulder and saw a nice buck coming up the trail. Things happened very fast at this point. I decided that I was going to shoot pretty instantaneously. He was only at 30 yards when I first saw him walking in quickly. I grabbed my bow stood up in one motion as he was getting to my first line I drew. At this same time he walked straight to my tree. Still at full draw he walked to about 5 yards and looked straight up at me. Got nervous turned around and went straight away. he walked to about 15 yards then turned to his right. I moved to the next lane and as he was walking very slow waited for him to walk in to the lane. I settle the pin a little back as I thought he was quartering decently. I let the shot go and the nock took the place of the pin and when right where I was aiming. Problem was he wasn't quartering as much as I thought. He was actually about as broadside as you could be with being fully broadside. I saw the arrow punch in to the and knew it wasn't the best hit in the world. The deer ran 20 yards tail up then stopped. Blood was pouring out of the entrance and then he walked away down the hill crossed the creek and started walking away across the bottoms. He looked a little wobbly taking short steps and I knew he was hurt. Last I saw he was about 120 yards away. Jumped down to check the arrow and didn't feel there was any chance of spooking him. Checked the arrow and just dark dark red blood. Knew it was liver and didn't see or smell any guts so that made me feel a touch better. I got back up just to glass and watch for the next hour and game planned with my friend who unfortunately had to take the long way out. His ¼ mile walk turned in to about a 1.5 miles because of how the deer walked after the hit. When i got down I crossed the blood trail about 10 yards into it, found some blood and saw a good blood trail for about 20 yards until the hill dropped over. At this point I was going to wait till 2 that would be right about 6 hours from the hit. My dad pulled up at 12 and after telling him what I saw he talked me in to going ahead with it. So we took up the track about 12:30. First 40 yards was easy. Good blood every couple of feet. Lightened some for the next 40 but still easy to follow then after the creek it lightened more and more. 120 yards in now and at the last point I saw him and we were on our hands and knees circling the last blood looking for anything. Turkey had been through and the wind was high so that didn't help at all. We were going pin drop by pin drop. Basically like this for the next 60 yards. Then we completely lost blood. I was very worried at this point. He was walking uphill and had crossed a ditch I didn't think he would. I was going through options in my head. At that point I just stood at the last blood at started glassing in a circle looking for any little thing that may give a clue. Then in a cedar thicket about 40 yards away a little white patch. I take a step look again and see the rack, the search had thankfully came to an end. All in all it was about a 220 yards. As we walked up on him there was definitely some ground shrinkage. But that didn't totally surprise me as things happened so fast and but either way I was happy. It was a nice 8 that was decently heavy. I am going back and forth between 2.5 and 3.5 on age. He was rubbing the crap out of the trees. The nubs at the base of his rack were actually smoothed over he has been rubbing so much. Never had seen that before. Ended up scoring 127 4/8 roughly. I am no professional scorer but I did it twice and was with 2/8 of one another so I don't think it is far off. I was going to put the BH.com picture article to good use but there was some miscommunication between my dad and I so unfortunately these pictures are all I got as by the time I figured out what was going the head had already been lopped off. This guy is going to get a euro mount. As my cut off for a shoulder mount is 140" or a really long history and good story. The shot somehow stayed out of the guts and got liver and clipped the offside lung. Botched shot was totally my lack of practicing from a tree stand I am convinced and I will fix that. The shot went right where the pin was but my estimation of angle was just wrong.
If that deer had "ground shrinkage"......what were you expecting? That is a NICE deer by most standards.
Yes definitely. I was hoping and thinking 140 when I shot it. The way he walked in and it happened so fast I thought he was much taller than what he ended up. Granted it was a glance then decided to shoot. Trying to avoid buck fever I tried to keep my eyes off the rack after the first glance. Very nice deer by my standards too.
Congrats on the nice buck with a happy ending. I think tracking is so much fun...until the worrying and wondering takes affect!
