This past Sunday morning I got my first bow kill. Still can't believe I got a shot opportunity after what transpired before that. Just after first shooting light a yearling doe comes out and is walking around eating within 20 yards. She then walks right up to my tree and starts sniffing around. She doesn't act spooked and continues on. All of a sudden she starts stomping around in circles and looking up at me. I'm sending her telepathic waves of get the @@@@ out of here! About that time I see another deer at about 40 yards. It leans down to eat and I see antlers but am thinking it's one of the smaller bucks I have on cam since the big ones have only been coming out at night. He then starts stomping and just freezes for about 10 minutes. When he does finally move I see that it's a good size 9 point that I got on cam the week before. At this point the doe has finally moved on past me. I'm thinking there's no way he's coming in here now. He finally starts slowly zigzagging through some thick stuff eating and being cautious. At one point he gave me a pretty decent 30 yard shot but it was on my right side and I was afraid the tree would get in the way of my draw with how I would have to be twisted. I decided to be patient and let him walk if need be instead of scaring him off. After turning back the other way and what looked to be b-lining away from me, he turns and comes to 20 yards broadside on my left with his head behind a tree. I took the shot, knew it was good and watched him take off. He ran maybe 40 yards and crashed hard. Then here comes the doe blowing and stomping like "I knew something was up!" I was planning on taking a doe for some meat as I thought it would be a few weeks before the bucks would really be coming through during daylight hours. I'm horrible at guessing weight but I'm thinking he was 200ish lbs. I measured him and as long as I did it correctly he came in at 117 gross 106 net. Oh and this was in Northwest Arkansas. Fighting with a little 7 point
Wow what a feeling it is getting that first bow kill huh! And to have it be a buck like that awesome man awesome!
Thanks everybody. To be honest I was kinda hoping my first kill would be a doe just to get the jitters out but hey I'll take it! Oh and for the heart sinking part during the recovery I forgot to add. Let's preface this by saying I have an old Honda 300 4x4 that has seen better days. The brakes are almost non existent and it will go straight into reverse without pulling the lever. So I'm backing up to the deer so I can tie on and drag him out. Well I get stopped and go to shift into neutral and kill it. Well I hit reverse! Smacked right into him and sounds horrible. All I can think is NOOOOOO! Luckily it only barely scratched one side of the antlers but it sounded like they snapped. Learned my lesson....fix my 4 wheeler!
