I wish I could say my hard work paid off, but I really haven't done much. Been working long hours all week so I decided to leave early Thursday and spend the afternoon/evening in the stand, hoping for a chance at a deer. Within 30 minutes of being setup I saw a fork horn and a doe trot by my buddy's stand to the east of my position. I was stoked because the temps were dropping so I had hoped I'd see more deer. I heard him behind me grunting (first time hearing one grunt, too), but way out of range. I sat around for another 45 minutes or so and heard what sounded like deer steps right in front of me. I wasn't too happy about it as it was very dense thickets and I hadn't cleared a good shooting lane, plus it was a straight on shot. Luckily, it ended up just being a squirrel. I toyed with the idea of throwing a field point at it, but decided not to waste an arrow and kill for no reason (ethical no-no in my book...exception being carp).
I was getting readjusted when I caught some movement about 150-200 yards to my left, right along the creek bank. Sure enough, a deer comes walking out of the timber line and walks into the field. I grabbed the binoculars and saw him as a fork buck, maybe 2 years old. He followed the deer trail there along the end of the picked corn field, through some tall grass and started heading north along the trail, away from me. Curious as to how well he would respond to a grunt, I threw one out. He stopped and perked up his ears. Perfect! I grunted again, this time he got curious himself and started walking my way. He's 50 yards out so I drew back. I'm a relatively skinny guy, so with a 65lb draw and only having 75% letoff on my Mathews Q2, I knew holding it would suck. Of course, he took his time, but eventually got right to my left, perfect angle for a shot, right at 14 yards (according to my range finder). I debated letting him go, thinking "Hey, he'll be bigger next year" but I've gambled like that before and lose. I decided he needed to go down. I click the trigger of my release and let my Gold Tip arrow fly his way, Muzzy MX-3 broadhead cutting the way through. Perfect shot, right behind the front left leg. He jumped, ran about 100 yards and dropped. Less than 45 seconds after the arrow hit he quit moving. A part of me was upset because he laid on his left side, where my arrow went in. "There's goes that arrow," I thought. I waited 30 minutes and even took a phone call from my dad before I got down from the stand. Definitely thankful I was wearing my harness because I was afraid of shaking my way out of the tree! Adrenaline and excitement running full bore.
I got down to see what the blood trail looked like, an lo and behold, there was my arrow! Complete pass through shot. Field dressing him I discovered I split his left lung, got his heart and punctured his right lung. I couldn't have asked for a better shot. Even if I hadn't seen him go down, that blood trail was perfect. Now that arrow will be on permanent display as my first deer kill arrow!
Where he dropped:
Arrow pass through:
Close-up of arrow:
My buck:
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