Thanks everyone. I initially thought it was the old warrior buck we’ve been after for about 6 yrs now. His rack is way down hill and he’s super tall. It all happened so fast I didn’t get a good enough look at him and in the cut corn with low light I couldn’t make out every detail of his rack. With limited time to hunt this year I wasn’t being picky anyhow. Idk when I’ll get out again so I shot some quick ranges and got ready when he was behind some cover. When he made it to the next hole he was going to be at my outer range of about 35 yds. He had his head down and took a step fwd so I let it go. As soon as I remember seeing my lighted nock I kind of heard a slight tick noise and watched my nock redirect downward. The buck tore out across the corn and I took my eye off him for a split second to curse the tiny twig that blew in front of my arrow right as I shot. When I put eyes back on him expecting to see him running off unscathed, I watched in horror as his stomach and intestines fell out of his stomach. That’s when I got sick to my own stomach. If I could replay it I still would have rather made a clean miss. He stopped after 100yds and hunched up with tucked tail. The classic gut injured deer. I fumbled to get my range finder untangled and put away and pull my binos out. He stood in that spot for about a minute then slowly slipped into the timber. I knew there was no way I was tracking that night. I backed out and went home. Didn’t even go look for arrow for fear he would see me from the Timber. A sleepless night was followed by a depressing morning at work. Not because i thought I wasn’t going to find him but the fact that the condition that deer was in he was suffering. Things are not great at my work right now. Just had a mass layoff “restructuring” and there is a lot of pressure on everyone. But my boss is freaking awesome and told me to go get him. At 11:30am, 18 hrs after the shot, we started tracking. At the shot sight which was hard to pin down, we couldn’t find arrow. Figured it was buried in the stubble so we decided to head straight to the spot he was standing and immediately found blood. Right inside the timber where he stepped in was his first bed. After that 8 more in the next 150 yds. He was hugging the creek in a big loop back where he came from. We lost blood and decided to walk the creek and field edge looking in because it choked down and visibility got better in the area he was headed. At the point we had last blood he had J hooked and we figured he was back to where he initially came from which is thick bedding area. Not wanting to taint the woods too much we didn’t stomp anything Down and started calling trackers. Went and got a bite to eat and I decided to go grab my 2y.o. GSP. She is not very experienced and being there was others hunting kind of close, I initially wanted to be cautious and not screw up someone’s hunt. She still has tendency to get distracted. But at this point I was desperate. Trackers haven’t called back so I thought what the hay, I’ll let her try. She’s found a couple of deer that were VERY easy tracks. No sooner than I made it home and loaded her up I checked my phone and had missed calls from the tracker. Poor girl, she knew where we were going and was so excited only for me to unload her and put her back in the house. Tracker took my info and we chatted about the details. He agreed it was a dead deer and said we definitely did right by waiting but we should have waited longer. 24hrs on those hits let’s the sickness do its job when the lethality of the shot isn’t up to snuff. Fast fwd to the dog covering what took us 3 hrs in about 15 min, he kept coming back to this super steep creek crossing. Even the tracker was questioning him at this point. It was about a 12ft. Shear drop off. But he said we should trust the dog and after all that’s what I paid to do! He told the dog to cross. When he got up to other side you could see the excitement in his body language. He was very aggravated that we did not swim across the creek with him. Even waders aren’t enough for this creek. So we backed out, loaded up and drove to the adjacent side of the property to access the other side. When we got to where we dropped a pin there was good blood immediately. About 30 more yds and he called us right back on the radio. He watched the buck take his last breath. 26hrs it took that deer to expire. While I’m glad I did everything I could to recover this deer I’m not happy about how it went down. I’m not beating myself up too hard because I’m deadly out to 50 yds but limit myself to 30-35. He was in range at a good angle. I had a hole. But 30 mph winds are rough idc who you are. I’m tired and am at work typing this. Time I got home deer washed out, showed the kids and got him hung up, it was 10:30. My alarm went off at 3 am but I guess us hunters are used to that. I’ll be working for a good stretch and I’m not too upset looking at the upcoming warm front. Already can’t get back in the woods though. I’ll just have to wait a bit. Side note: as we tried to identify the deer before we laid eyes on him. All I could remember was he wasn’t huge, he was very tall and had decent mass, body was mid sized for a buck in that area, that’s when we figured it was ol’ gnarly. The old declining war horse we’ve been after for 6yrs. Neighbors are after him too. He’s been going down hill fast last few yrs. But ol’gnarly still lives, and I have another buck tag. I just hope someone gets him before the coyotes do! Ol’ Gnarly in his declining state 2024
Thanks for sharing the story. Deer are an amazing animal. I'm so surprised the coyotes didn't get on him. Congratulations again!
All set-up in the saddle. Had broken rack buck walk by before I got in here. He was on the camera just east of my stand. Good Luck, everyone!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Us too! We aren’t getting many pics of them lately but they make their rounds this was text from guy that hunts neighboring property about 1/2 mile away last night.
I don’t think the deer got the memo that it’s a holiday and therefore should be up and frustrating us…since many of us are sitting out here…
Way too cold for me!! Good luck to all yall hardcore hunters out there freezing, my fingers can't take 18 degrees and 15mph winds anymore. Apparently the stupid air ride suspension on my truck can't either......pretty sure it died completely on me yesterday, always something!
Came back to the house to get my son, dog snd 4 wheeler. Of course 4 wheeler would not start. My uncle is also meeting up with us to look.
