The buck went out in a big crp field and I'm not gonna push it. Just to be safe were gonna wait a few hours to track him.
Awesome job guys. I'm in the stand now, going to be my last sit for a few days. My wife is being induced in the morning so I have bigger things to deal with for a bit. Congrats again, keep after em.
I got my buck, i gotta go cut his head off now I'll post some pics later tonight and score him tomorrow
We are very close to first place after these two bucks get added to the scores. Great job so far everybody!
Well the story of my buck starts with the day before yesterday. I was bow hunting the IDNR public land that ajoins the U OF I park property I bowhunt.This public land also requires bowhunters to kill a doe before you can kill a buck. So day before yesterday up in the thicket I heard a few grunts and then a few minutes later the doe came in so I waited to see if a buck was trailing or flanking her. When no buck showed I killed the doe whom dropped dead it turns out 22.5 yards in front of me in my climber . So yesterday morning I decided to try and bowhunt where I had heard the buck grunts the pervious morning. It was a foggy morning and at 9:00am I caught movement in the the distance in the thicket. I grabbed my video camera and free hand filmed off in the distance a buck working his way through the thicket and he was headed in the opposite direction of me. So I got a little footage of him and when he disapeared in the thick stuff I put the camera away and started to grunt at him to see if I could get him to come my way. Here is the film footage https://youtu.be/LpJIbYaiNbo Cont....
To my suprise the grunt call worked and the buck turned and without hesitation started to walk my way and when he got to a little more open area he started to trot. The buck stopped twice to look for the buck that made the grunts and then came 12 yards facing me behind a tree, so with the tree cover I drew my bow he stepped out from behind the tree and looked straight up at me. Thats when I felt a little panic thinking he has busted me and this isnt going to end well. No sooner than he looked at me for only a second he looked away when he decided the big blob 15 feet up in the tree ( the tree had a big branch so I couldnt get any higher... were not allowed to cut branches ) was nothing and looked away and turned broadside slightly quartering to me. I settled my pin on him and released. He bolted upon the arrow impacting him and took off like a quarter horse plowing through the thicket of multiflora rose like a freight train. I was shooting a Firenock and could see my nock liteup and all but 7 inches of the arrow buried in his vitals. So I later climbed down from the tree and packed my gear and climber and shed as much clothing and gear as I could and left it all at the base of my tree to start blood trailing my buck as quietly as possible. I was quickly on blood and it had bubbles in it so I knew I had lung blood but after I had gone over 100 yards and he had never stopped evidence of no no pools of blood I was starting to worry so once I found that he was bleeding on both sides I was feeling better about a recovery. So after I quietly trailed him with my bow , taking a few quiet steps and stopping and looking for him ready to shoot him again if necesary I came to the edge of the ticket where it opens up to a huge CRP field. At this point I decided I dont want to chance pushing him. Since he wasnt down within 100 yards I began to think maybe I only got 1 lung and liver. Ao I decided to back out and give him a few hours and come back later. so we were off to eat breakfast. Cont....
The parks natural areas manager contacted me and told me he had a new intern whom was a U of I senior student whom wanted to tag along with us to learn how to trail a shot animal since her focus in study is taking her to do her graduate work in Elk Restoration in Missouri and she wants to be more focused on hunter interaction with her studies and be able to add blood trailing to her resume. So I was more than happy to have come and learn with us. So we gave my buck 4 hours and then we returned to the edge of the chest high CRP field dotted with cedar and Oak planted sapplings. I pointed out the blood and gave the Student the lead in tracking him. We came up with a game plan and discussed that if she spotted him she would hand gesture to me and freeze so that I could approach him with my bow drawn in the case that I might need to put another arrow in my buck. The blood trail was easy for me to follow and I had a great time watching her blood trailing him and I was able to point out to her what to look for when trailing in hoof prints, Smears of blood on the weeds and sapplings, Drops on the ground, blood on both sides of his trail etc.... What a joy it was to watch a young lady learning to blood trail She was able to blood trail him right to his bed tucked in under a oak sappling and then she hand gestured to me and froze. I stepped beside her and drew my bow took 3 stepps and let down my bow since it was evident my buck was dead. Brianna was so excited that she was smiling from ear to ear and I told her congrats on her first bloodtrail and gave her a big hug. The bad part was the just slightly over 1/2 mile drag out of which I wasnt much help with the torn calf muscle I could holy drag him on the flat and downhill parts of which there wasnt much of Thank god my husband was there to help !!!!!!!!!! When field dressing him I found my arrow entered my buck in the high lung and only took out one lung then sliced the liver almost in half and then exited trough the stomach and the broadhead on exit had only just poked through the bottom of his belly and the arrow was broken in 3 parts. He ended up weighing 260lbs and when I get the skull cleaned up I will be able to rough judge his age by his lower jaw teeth. I really believe based on his looks and huge jug head he had that he is an older deer with a rack thats going down hill... we will see. He has a broken off G4 on his right side and not much width so I know that will hurt his score some. I will get him scored and entered later today.
