The Orion Syndicate (#12) - 2020 & 2021 Champions

It’s been an action packed afternoon.

You lost me with the I hate bacon thing Brett.

Maybe it’s the celebratory beers on a empty stomach.

 

I’m not sure which would have been worse, me or him.

 

Hey Mitch, explain how you’re one up on me please.

Oh, and if you bump up your scoring and post it soon we can enjoy first place for a while.

 

Yep, it was the celebratory beers. You are indeed one up on me.

Enjoy it while it lasts. I don’t have to meter my time on stand any more.

 

That sounds a little like a challenge Mitch!

I don’t care if it is. I’m finished with bets this year.

 

Ah yes, the story.

I got here Wednesday afternoon. Josh and I set up about 100 yards apart on a winding creek running north-south in a strip of woods about 100 yards wide. The bucks really travel that creek in warm weather. We didn’t see anything that afternoon.

We discussed what I should do the next day while he was at work. We both knew that our hunting apps showed 10:00 - 12:00 was the best predicted movement time. Josh suggested sleeping in and getting on stand at 9:30 and sit until 1:00, but that first hour of daylight always has potential.

I got on stand at 6:00 am. I didn’t see anything that first hour or so and because of the bet I didn’t want to burn two hours when I knew they wouldn’t be moving, so I got down, went back to the house, grabbed a bite to eat and some coffee.

I got back on stand at 9:53 am. The entire morning the wind was out of the WSW when it was supposed to be out of the NE. Josh had told me that the bucks almost always travel north to south, so I had really been focusing my attention north.

As 11:00 and 11:30 rolled around I was thinking it was a waste of time, but about 11:42 I happened to glance to the south over my right shoulder and caught movement.

As soon as I realized it was a deer I knew it was a buck. He moving quickly but still behind good cover so I stood up quickly, grabbed my bow and hooked my release on.

Just as I got turned he came out of the cover, and when he started crossing the creek he trotted all the way across the opening I wanted to shoot in and trotted right to the base of my tree.

When he got to the bottom of my tree he locked up and went on full alert, but there was nothing I could do but wait and see what happened.

He tried to look up a few times but there was good leaf cover between us. I tried to get a better position for a shot and I think he heard me. He trotted a couple more steps and stopped. He was maybe three yards from my tree slightly quartering away, almost broadside.

I drew and leaned over as far as I thought I could, but I couldn’t get the pin down to him. I stretched, leaned more and got my pin where it needed to be, but I remembered I was shooting a 31” ATA bow, so I quickly glanced down to make sure my cam was clear and saw the bowstring pressed up against the top rail of my Summit Viper.

I leaned just a bit more and it all came together. I touched the release and the arrow hit for what looked to me like a top to bottom single lung shot. I was wishing then that I had nocked a Grim Reaper CarniFour instead of a Slick Trick Magnum.

The buck tore out and ran following the creek headed north. I waited about 10 minutes, packed up, climbed down, grabbed the arrow and backed out to meet Josh at the house. I had to wait for him to get home from work.



Josh got home, changed and we headed out. When we got there the blood trail started a little sparse, but picked up quickly.





We tracked him almost a quarter of a mile. He went north along the west side of the creek, went down into the creek, which was dry, went north in the creek, came up out of it on the east side, crossed the finger of woods, hit the bean field edge, then headed south along the field edge.

Then as he got close to a small patch of woods out in the field he cut through the soybeans. We followed him through that and found where he had gone into the small wood patch.

Josh tracked him about 50 yards in that patch and then he froze. He motioned to me that he was 20 yards away and he was still alive.


The above pic is a screenshot of video I took of him and here is a shot of OnX showing my stand location and where we found him.


Since we were that close and he hadn’t bolted I had a feeling that buck was in his last moments but I wanted to end it. I nocked an arrow and eased over to the other side of Josh for a clear line of sight. I had to take a knee because there was a small limb in the way, but I hit him with the finishing arrow and he didn’t even flinch.

A couple of minutes later his head went down and he stopped moving.


I got on my ebike, rode back to the house, got the trailer and some bungee cords and flew back over there. We loaded him on the bike cart and I towed him about 3/4 mile back to the house.

I’ve killed bigger bucks than this but other than the even smaller one I killed in January I can’t think of one that’s made me happier.

 

Also, Josh just sent me this pic from his cell camera that was in the creek close to my tree.

In this pic he is about 5 yards from the base of my tree which is right at the top of the creek bank he’s going up.

This was one minute before I shot him.

 

Ty, this Hunt was on private ground around Windsor, MO.