With the snow still on the ground in the woods, and the wife with the night off to watch the 2 year old, I decided to get the boy out immediately after school for a last bow hunt before the gun season.
As we enter the woods and head downhill to the stand, we see a deer appx 40 yards from where the stand is. We both hit the deck and it disappears from sight into a corn field . We stay put for about 5 minutes and creep our way down. As we approach closer we realize there’s nothing in sight, don’t know if it split or if it’s watching us. I tell him there’s plenty of deer and only 1.5 hours of shooting time left, so we climb up into the ladder stand.
Not 10 minutes go by and I see brown about 20 yards behind us. I can see what looks like a fork sticking out, but as he took the next step away from the tree, I realize he’s a pretty nice 8. I whisper to the boy that we got a shooter right behind us and DONT MOVE. He heads towards us from a grassy patch next to the corn into the woods to a trail that leads up to the stand. As he gets to the trail, he stops and turns right back around and begins to walk away. As he got about another 10 yards away, I gave him a few desperation mouth grunts ( had no call with me). He lifts his head, starts shaking his head around and walks to the nearest tree and rakes the hell outta the branches and lays down a scrape. I give him another louder grunt and he sticks his chest out and makes his way back towards us. He enters the outskirts of the corn field and makes his way to a shooting lane 10 yards to our left. I told the boy to draw, which he does (shaking) and ask him if he wants me to stop him. He says yeah sure, so the moment he steps in the lane, I give him a lil bleat. He stops on a dime and Jake lets the arrow fly. His first ever shot with the bow on a deer connects!!!…on the shoulder. 
We watch him limp away.
We decided to give him a 10 minute head start and get down to look for the start of the blood trail. We find it and mark it with an arrow. We leave and go home to get dinner, knowing that this could be a long night.
When we get home, he tells mom about the deer he shot and she’s super excited. Says we should have dinner and head out after it. I tell her that I think we’d be better off to wait till morning, but with Jake having school tomorrow, somehow my [censored] lets them talk me into it.
We get out after dinner and head to the blood trail, which we follow for about 500 friggin yards. As we drop into a deep ravine, we hear the worst sound we could imagine…ch Ch Ch, Ch Ch Ch, Ch Ch Ch. If you can’t decipher that one, that would be the sound of a three legged deer getting up and leaving. We have now potentially blown it!!!
Well, we backed out and I plan on getting out at first light. I realize that prayers may be a bit excessive, but good luck wishes would be appreciated.
On a positive note, Jake is absolutely devastated that it’s still running around injured. I think I’ve got a good bow hunter on my hands…
