As many of you know by now, December 19th turned out to be an awesome day for me. This adventure started last Saturday (the 12th) when I arrived home for Christmas break and promptly checked my trail camera to see if there was any movement after the rut. I honestly wasn't expecting much, but I was pleasently surprised. There was alot more buck movement than I expected, and a great looking 8 point had become a frequent visitor as well. Here is a few pics I caught of him. Admitidly, I didn't feel like hunting too hard over my break. It's late season....I was ready for Christmas.....and it's cold . I did go out for a few evening sits though, and after seeing very little movement, I came to the remarkable conclusion that a morning hunt would probably be more productive. On the evening of the 18th my best friend and I decided to wake up the next morning and give it a shot. My buddy was bringing his video camera along and we hoped to get some deer action on film. We actually got to the stand a little late, but we weren't too worried. Around 7:15 we had two does come by us, but it was still too dark to get a shot off. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Less than ten minutes later I look up to see antlers walking our way. I nuge my buddy and tell him there is a nice buck walking our way....and he doesn't believe me! :D I had to tell him to shutup and quit moving before he was finally convinced that a deer was coming toward us. LOL. As he got closed I recognized him as the buck that had been coming to the cameras lately. He has a distinctive curl on the tip of his left browtine. He eventually walked in to about 15 yards and I drew my bow while he was behind some thick brush. My buddy saw me draw my bow and we had a short conversation that went something like this....."Will, it's not light enough to see with the camera"........"I don't care! He's big, I'm gonna shoot!" :D He stepped out in my lane and offered me a slightly quartering to shot at 12 yards. I let the arrow go and it buried up the fletchings right behind the shoulder. We watched him bolt away, had a brief celebration in the tree, and eventually got down and went back to the truck. My parents house is only 2 miles away so we went there and made a pot of coffee while we gave him a couple hours to sit. The shot looked good but I knew he was quartering toward me and I didn't want to take any chances on my biggest buck yet. We went back to search and soon realized that there was no blood to be found...NONE. But we did know that he has crossed a creek so we began searching at the point he crossed. As soon as we came up on the bank on the other side, my worst fear was realized. We stepped up on the other bank, and he was bedded down 10 yards in front of us. He jumped up, ran across a wheat field, ran into the trees on the other side.....my heart had sunk We knew it was worthless to pursue him, so we went back to the house feeling horrible. My plan was to come back the next morning and search for him, but by 4:30 that evening I couldn't stand it anymore. It had been 9 hours since the shot, and I felt like he should be dead. I called my buddy and we went back out to look for him again. This time while crossing the creek I found the arrow. It was covered in blood which made me feel better, but we still had no blood trail to follow. I wasn't feeling very optimistic about the whole situation, but we entered the trees where we had seen him enter. I started walking down a well used trail and about 50 yards into the timber I found him piled up at the base of a tree. I was so excited to find him. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The craziest part about the whole situation was how there was not even a drop of blood on the ground. He went over 200 yards and we never found a bit....NOT ONE DROP. Even the spot where he piled up and died didn't have any blood. It was the roughest tracking job I have ever been a part of, and I now understand what people are talking about when they say how horrible they feel when they don't find a deer. This was my first experience dealing with a jumped deer in a situation that didn't look like it would turn out well. The thought of not finding this buck was killing me, but thankfully it all turned out good in the end. Here he is, my best buck yet, scoring in at 116 2/8"
Can't see the pic here at work but WAY TO GO Will. Awesome to get a late season buck. Congrats buddy.
Awesome story and buck. I know the feeling you were were talking about. Glad it turned out good. Congrats.
Will, that is a BEAUTIFUL buck man Im so glad for you, Awesome story to. You did everything right and deserve that buck congrats bud! How wide is he?
