Yea I had it happen this year too. Been a few years since it has happened but can't do anything about it besides keep trying to get better. Can't mimic every shot and reaction from a doe.
Saw a ton of deer tonight and had one of the big boys between 20-40 yards away for 15 minutes but he just wouldn’t step out of the thick stuff. Been working on a plan to hunt that area for the past week and I just don’t have an answer for it. I’ll be back out again in the morning.
Ok guys, here’s the scoop on last nights buck... I had quite the night last night. It took some finagling to make it out into the woods due to work and family commitments but I made it work since I knew today would be a complete wash out due to the hurricane Delta remnants. That said, I had high hopes that the deer would get up and move prior to the storm. I was in a spot I have never hunted. I have hunted that private property only 3 times ever (all this year) but not this spot. Normally the guy that hunts it couldn’t make it out that night and told me I could sit there. It is an area in the woods that has been cleared out quite a bit over this past summer. I figured that would be better than my spot that’s on the edge of an open field. He has a ground blind set up but I am headstrong about using my new saddle set-up that I have spent a fortune on! Lol. I hadn’t seen anything until I see 3 deer (2 8 point bucks and a button buck) come out at 1810. I went back and forth on which buck I was gonna shoot about 3 times. Lol. I shot the bigger buck at 1830. I felt that the shot was perfect and the deer mule kicked. It was a complete pass through and the arrow had limited dark blood only. I tried to get down before it got completely dark to look at the arrow and see if I could find some decent blood before I headed back to the truck to put away my equipment and give him some time. I did not see any blood and therefore I called a buddy to come help me track. We went out around 2100 and didn’t find any blood so we called his neighbor who has a bloodhound to come out. We met him around 2215 and started with the dog. My buddy actually just randomly walked up on it out of the blue and finally found it at 2338. It ended up being a almost perfect shot which makes it so weird to not have good blood. After gutting, skinning and quartering and deboning it, I finally got into bed at 0238 (after getting up that morning at 0430 to workout before work). It was really good to share this experience with my buddy and my 2 daughters. It is my biggest bowkill buck, first Arkansas deer in 4 years of trying, first deer killed out of a saddle and first time getting my new truck bloody! I appreciate all the love from you guys!! LFTS is the best! Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
sorry i didn't update. for some reason my phone wouldn't log on to the site. i ended up seeing a couple doe. i think it was just too warm. hanging another set in the morning for hunts during the week.
Congrats again! Curious on one thing, did you try to reverse track at all? Once you found him try to follow his trail back a bit to see if there was a point to where he opened up after POI? Definitely looks like he was bleeding when you found him, lastly, how far did he go from POI?
Update from me. Lots of hunters out on public today. I think at one point I had 3 other hunters within 75 yards of me. I never saw them, but at parking lot that's were they said they were hunting. I hunted te spot I took my daughter and ended up having same doe and fawn walk past at 5 feet from my tree. Guess I setup alittle to close to the trail, which in turn saved the does life. She was to close, and I had to many branches on the tree I was in to shoot. She never gave me a good shot after that. I also had a flock of turkeys come up and roost in the trees all around me. Closest was about 30 yards. That's it Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
The only deer I saw were the two that I spooked 20yrds from my stand on the way in. Funny how stuff works. Checked my cams and had two different basket 8pts, a 6pt with tall brows, a spike, and a few doe/yearlings. Still waiting for a shooter to show up. I'm going to wait another week, or even two before I hunt again, because they still aren't done with the logging operation clearing the tornado damaged trees from last Halloween night. Their staging/loading area is only a couple hundred from my spot. I could hunt, but I wouldn't hear deer coming with all the noise. I sure am hoping they get done before the rut!!!
One thing I don't like about hunting season. Im drawn to the weather channel like a crack addict. Every day. Predicting out the weather, my hunts, the weather channel can go to hell!....over and over even though I tell myself enough is enough.
Good point dnoodles. Yes, they are the old school fixed 3 blade Muzzys. I have had them for about 10 years or more. Just bought a ton back in the day. Once I finish up my back stock of them, I plan to get something that will paint the forest red!! All that said, the blades on them are brand new everytime right out of the package. Once they hit a target or hit the dirt/deer in the woods, I replace the blades. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Stay away from TWC, they are not locally based even on their locals on the 8's or whatever it may be called now. Haven't watched them in years. Weather.gov will always be the better option for local forecasts, never go beyond 3 days as weather models are sketchy after that. Try to avoid the graphics and text on the main page for forecasts as those are generally auto generated and change slightly after each model runs. For the most part they are somewhat accurate, but they are not manually updated by your local meteorologists at the Weather Forecasting Office for your area. You will get much better info regarding their thought by reading 3 different things on there, The AFD(Area Forecast Discussion), Hourly Weather Graph and the HWO(Hazardous Weather Outlook). All of those three are update manually, periodically, to give a more human based forecast on their thinking based both on real time observations and predicted modeling forecasts. Some of the discussions will not necessarily tell you what winds will be or be exact, it is the weather after all, but it will give you more of an insight to their confidence in the modeled forecasts most "forecast sites/channels" will base their forecast from. I absolutely love the weather and have been following it avidly since about 2010, kinda gotten away from it the past year or two but still keep up when bigger events loom.
Yes, there was a ton of blood within about 10 yards of where he laid. We did try to reverse track him and and noticed that he was on a totally different line from where I thought ran from. But that could have been from him circling around some. Just hard to piece it all together without basically any blood for 90 yards. He was about 100 yards away from the POI. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Darn you guys...., I can't keep up let alone responde much. I have too though on broadhead issues. Believe it or not (Sota),I've been in on well over a 1000 bow kills. Ain't gonna get into the this of that of broadheads as is pointless. I've killed over 100 deer and probably 35+ bear with plain old Muzzy 3 blade heads. They have always worked and I ain't switching for something else. Edited too add, I've seen WAY to many losses with Rage heads. I freaking hate em and will Never allow one in my camp!! Rant over, back to regular programming. Edited again, I never thought I'd get caught up in a thread like this but have. You members . Congrats to all out killn n trying. Swampy, you give a new meaning to the phrase "diehard"
