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

Who cares if it has nothing to do with hunting? That's NICE. I'd like to drive that. Just once.

 

I'm on the countdown to another new moon. The 16th and 17th should be fantastic days.

Kentucky has a 2 day muzzleloader season on the 17th and 18th. I want to take my bow and muzzleloader along on those days but I wasn't sure it was legal. I know it isn't here in Missouri because the seasons don't overlap. Some states allow it and some don't.

I called Kentucky DNR and they said that both weapons can be on stand at the same time during muzzleloader season, so that's what I'm going to do. It'll be a pain setting up, but I'd much rather kill that buck I saw with a bow if he comes in range.

 

Is there a scratching your head emoji on here? New directions to the new scorecard thread?

 

Dammit Mitch! I figured you were just yanking my chain.

My tank is empty also. Up late last night skinning and quartering a deer. Up late again tonight skinning and quartering a deer. This is two nights in a row I've missed dinner.

When I kill one in the evening I'm always so jazzed that I can't eat so I just drink beer instead and always wake up feeling pretty haggard.

Tomorrow morning will be no exception.

 

Okay team, it was only another doe, but this doe deserves a story. A long story as a matter of fact.

Ever since I found out that my property extends beyond where I thought it did I've been hunting there off and on and from the start a doe has been blowing. Every single sit she's been blowing somewhere. A couple of times I thought it was her smelling where we walked or maybe me, but regardless of the wind this doe would blow. It's like she just lived to blow.

Someone on the forums suggested I name her Monica and I liked it so that became her name.

That doe is the ONLY doe I was willing to shoot during a PM sit over there because she needed to go. I didn't want to shoot a doe there in the evening because I knew the recovery would be very disruptive.

I had planned on not hunting that side of the road again for a few weeks, but I still had a climber over there and as I said before, if I have to walk in there I might just as well sit and carry my stand out at the end of the sit.

Somewhere around 5:30-ish I heard Monica sound off way off to my southeast. The wind was southwest. At 6:17 I had a spike in front of me at 10 yards. It was feeding from the north to the south. He was almost right in front of me and Monica started blowing again due south. She sounded like she was about 150-200 yards away. Interestingly enough, the spike totally ignored the blowing doe. Maybe the local deer were used to her odd behavior. Or maybe he was just a stupid spike. I don't know.

The spike continued on and when he was at around 40 yards away Monica lit the woods up again but this time she was closer. I didn't know it at the time, but they were on a collision course.

A few minutes later I heard a commotion over where the spike went. Monica (who I had no idea was there) started blowing and she and another doe bounded my way. Here was my chance at last! I slowly reached for my bow as the first doe trotted by. As soon as she was a bit past me I glanced left and Monica was bouncing my way, blowing the entire time.

I slid my bow of the Third Hand bow holder and hooked my release on. Monica stopped at 20 yards quartering away about 45 degrees. After a quick glance to the right to see the other doe still going, I drew. Monica was looking back at the spike and still blowing.

That doe was blowing when my arrow hit home. The entry wound was about 3/4 of the way up her body toward the back of the ribs. My Slick Trick made a mess of her boiler room and hit the off-side lower front leg bone, broke it and lodged there. It didn't punch through the hide for an exit wound.

This is my first season hunting with lighted nocks, so watching that Nocturnal bound away through the woods was somewhat surreal. She made a semi-circle and headed downhill towards thick cover. I heard her crash, then I heard more commotion and another crash. I knew she was dead.

I started to climb down and then I thought it wasn't a good idea. I called my wife and asked her to come over. I stayed on stand until she got there and guided her to where I'd seen the doe go into thick cover. She stayed there while I climbed down. When I got to her she started looking for blood. I'm useless in this area since I'm colorblind. I got a little worried when she couldn't find blood.

We walked in small circles and suddenly I saw my Nocturnal beaming 10 yards away. The arrow had broken about 4" back from the broadhead and had pulled out. From that point my wife could follow the sparse blood trail. Then she lost it. I walked a couple steps forward in the thick, wooly cover and almost tripped over that doe.

I have no idea what her issues were. Maybe she was just mental. I thought she'd be a big old doe but she field dressed at 92 pounds. Not a big doe at all. Who knows what caused her to do what she did.

I can't tell you how badly I wish I had turned my Tactacam on and recorded a kill shot on a blowing doe (especially that doe), but from the time I knew the does were right there until the shot was maybe 45 seconds and every movement I made was calculated. I wasn't risking it.

Anyway, the end result, as I posted in the LFTS thread, is that Monica went down.