My family has a new lease in Western Oklahoma (about 2 1/2 hrs from our house) and the deer population on this property is crazy. Most days we've hunted there, we've seen more deer on the property than we saw all last year combined. The issue has been that they haven't come in close enough to take with a bow/crossbow. I was out, with my girlfriend for an afternoon/evening hunt on Nov. 20th. The rut is happening, and I've been working to get my gf on a deer, since this is her first year hunting. We had a decent 6 pt buck come in and stand broadside at 25 yrds around 1650 hrs. She took her time and sent a bolt, but missed the deer (newbie jitters) and he blasted out of the area, I loaded her crossbow up and told her to shake it off, we still had time left in the day, and could very easily get another opportunity. She told me that she preferred that I take the next shot, if we had another deer come in. At 1705 hrs., I saw this guy at 50 yrds, just beyond a willow grove. He started heading right at us, trotting, and once he was at 30 yrds, he stopped to graze a bit and was slightly quartering away from me. I slowly pulled the trigger, heard the bolt smack him, air escaping from him, and he turned to run the direction he had come from. We watched him stumble and then go down 70 yrds out in front of us. This guy was an old warrior. Busted tines, and some wear and tear on his face in places. His rack has a lot of character and could tell a thousand stories if it were possible. Still plenty of big bucks on this property and a bunch of the season left. Plus, I'm still working on my gf getting her first deer. We'll see how it all pans out.
Thanks! She and I will be back after it next weekend. I've got a feeling that getting her another chance on this lease has a high probability. For someone who had never been in the deer woods before, she's been bit by the hunting bug and is pretty consumed with doing what needs to be done to take her first deer. I've had an absolute blast teaching her and watching her journey this season.
Thank you. We gotta get this Thanksgiving gathering done and then host a get together for Bedlam (OU vs. OSU is like a religious holiday here in Okla) and then we're headed back out for a couple days of hunting before she has to head back to work. A lot of season left so I'm working hard to make it happen for her.
Thanks man! We appreciate that. If she connects I'll be sire to post pics here in this thread or let you guys know where to find the story here in the forums.
Here's an interesting part of the story about this buck.... around 10 days prior to me shooting him, my gf and I were out hunting for an afternoon/evening sit. She asked if we could sit in separate blinds to double up our chances, I was impressed she was confident enough to do this since it was literally like her 3rd sit in the woods. So... I got her set up and then headed to another blind on the corner of a food plot. It was a slow afternoon for me, seeing deer, but all out at like 200 yrds. At 1730 hrs my gf appear at my blind and says, "get your bow, I just missed one!!!" We set out to head back to her blind and on the way we meet eye to eye with a big, what looks to be 10 pt, standing the a mowed path. After a few seconds he meanders off, but never really acts like he is too concerned about us. We climb in the blind, and she shows me where he was standing broadside (10 yrds) in front of her. She said she pulled the trigger, and shot a bit low (in fairness, she was shooting my dad's crossbow at the time, which wasn't totally dialed in for her, attempting to see if she enjoyed all this. She immediately got her own after this this encounter). She said he jumped straight off the ground, turned 180 degrees, and then casually walked around the area, even at one point standing on his hind legs to lick a branch,and eventually walked over to a sand plum thicket and into it long enough for her to come get me. All this to say, when I recovered this deer, he had a healing wound on his right side, the side that she had presented to her when she shot the xbow that night. Now THAT would have been a story! If she would have connected and brought this guy down for her very first deer ever!!!!!
