I'm Back....... and...... I Got Some Bone I gotta tell the story first though. I was bowhunting in Brown County Illinois.... and for the 1st two days the wind was howling so the bottoms was where I hunted. The first morning my Jim smacked a Doe on his way to pick me up and damaged his new truck enough to need a new quarter panel and head light and damaged the passenger door, ... then....I miss placed my glasses so I hunted blind since I cant tell a spike from a doe at 20 yards without my glasses .... so to say the least we were off to a rough start Thursday morning I shot a buck I figured was in the 140's and quess he was a 10 point ( I didnt study his rack to well since I didnt want to get focused on antlers I just saw him and knew he was a shooter with good mass and real long tines and width was just past his ears )and he was trying to get up on the bench on the ridge above me and I new I wouldnt have any cover to draw my bow back so he was 19 yards behind me quartering to me hard, and I drew, I had been at full draw for what seemed like forever and couldnt let down since he was almost eyelevel with me and looking my way and just standing there forever I placed my 20 yard pin on him and shot but I must have blinked cause I didnt see the arrow hit him. Well he took off and was holding his back leg off the ground and wouldnt put weight on it, the arrow did pass threw him . So 3.5 hours later we went back and got the arrow, and it had meat and fat on the front but good blood soaking on the back, we trailed him to a bed and then 20 yards away he jumped up and took off, so the 3 off us followed with me having a arrow nocked we got 10 yards from him in brush up over my head, he hadnt gone 50 yards and bedded again was 10 yards away and you couldnt see him laying there, then the guys said they thought he was better than 140's they thought 150's, then he didnt go another 50 yards and bedded again and again we wernt 10 yards from him and he took off again but this time we lost the blood... so no recoverery so in hind sight we all would have waited till the next morning to look for him but you know hindsight is 20/20. Then Jim and Jeremy said they will go back in a few days and see if they can find him cause they belive he was fatally wounded since he was bedding so close together and he was all hunched up and was letting us consistantly get so close to him before he would jump up and run off to bed again. I am very tore up about the whole thing!!!!!! Every sit in the stand I watched lots of bucks chasing Doe's around, and watched bucks make rubs, scrapes and work licking branches... so it was on fire in Brown County Illinois. Friday morning I was sitting a stand in a area down in the bottoms called the HELL HOLE.... For good reason, its a NO Shooting Doe's stand, only shooting bucks stand since its in such a bad area to try and get a deer out of. The first deet that morning was a classic Rob buck he had a spike on his left side and a good 4 points on his right side , he walked by at 7 - 8 yards and headed up to the cedar thicket above me. Next a 6 point came by chasin a doe at 20 miles an hour into the cedar thicket, then across the creek 65 yards behind me 3 bucks come chasin does up into the cedar thicket they looked like a 130 inch 8 point, a 140ish 8 point and a 160 inch 9 or 10 point couldnt really tell for sure. they chased 2 does behind me to 12 yards and then the does went back into the cedar thicket, then they headed back across the creek with the bucks after them grunting, then they came chasin back to my side of the creek again. A doe comes down behind me to 13 - 15 yards with the big 160ish buck behind her at 28 yards but he stayed behind a dead cedar with tons of dead braches everywhere and I had no shot at him through all the branches and the doe then went back up into the cedar thicket and he followed her out of sight... damit!!!! So I headed back to the Hell Hole stand that afternoon hoping he would show again, ( I bumped 2 deer on the way in since the dry leaves on the ground made it sound like you were walking on corn flakes even though I was doing my best attempt to sound like a squirril walking in but neither of the deer sounded like they went to far). I had not been in the stand 30 seconds when a small buck chased a doe across the creek 65 yards behind me again ( I would of killed to have a stand in that 65 yard spot !!!!! ) So a while goes by and I rattle with the antlers and get no response after an hour rattle again and nothing, so 40 minutes later I tickle the antlers a little and in comes the same Rob buck from the morning hunt with the spike on one side and the 4 points on the other then he seen a doe fawn in the creek and went chasing after her, then a nice 8 point comes off the cedar ridge in front of me and makes a rub but he was being very slow and very weary and dissappeared at the creek, then I tickled the antlers again lightly with one hand while they were hanging on the hook in the tree, and here comes the 9 point from across the creek at the 65 yard spot again, he looks around and I tickle the antlers again with one hand and he turns and heads towards me, he first appeared to be a 8 point and not a huge buck but he looked pretty decent and it was the last night of my hunt there in Brown County, he comes in at 19 yards and I watch him making a scrape at 19 yards from me standing broadside so I draw and settle the 20 yard pin on his vital and while he is scraping I shoot him . The shot was about 2 inches higher than I was aiming but it still looked like high double lung and I knew he was dead. That Buck didnt leave us but maybe 12 small little specks of blood in 400 yards to follow, the arrow didnt blow threw him but I knew my entire arrow was inside him since when he took off I coulnt see any arrow sticking out of him. so roughly 400 yards latter Jim finds all kinds of blood and a Dead 9 Point Buck of mine... God bless him cause we were just zig zag searching that creek bottom thicket searching for more blood, thought we had lost him. So it took 4 people and a four wheeler whose 4 wheel drive had gone out and the headlight didnt work a total of FIVE HOURS to get that buck out of there after swamping the four wheeler in the creek and chris and I had to push it out in water up over our rubber boots while the 2 guys tried to pull on the back end... and DAM that water was COLD... so I shot him at 5:30pm and we got him to the truck at 10:30pm. So now you know why its called the HELL HOLE STAND... He will forever be known to me as my HELL HOLE BUCK I didnt get home till late yesterday since I was ready to come home at 9:00am but a fellow there shot a REALLY NICE 12 point buck and needed help to get it out and I was the only one around that could help him.. so I got home late yesterday hench the late post.
Yeah me to........ I will be back there next month to do some Doe management bowhunts with my husband and Christine and Kendal and if the old logging road that goes back up in those hills isnt to bad we might be able to get back up in that area to look for him if Jim and Jeremy dont find him.... when we were searching for him that morning we did find a dead spike and a dead REAL NICE upper 140's inch buck in there .... that place was like a Buck Cemetary.
