It has been quite the journey since my last bow deer (2018). Somewhere after that season I started doing something wrong, at the target I was shooting great but was shooting high at deer. Over the last 6 years 2 missed deer and one (really big) wounded buck last fall (he survived and is still running in the woods today) and I was really questioning my ability. Plenty of practice and really concentrating on form (plus a 3d target so I was practicing at the same ‘shape’ as a deer) and I was feeling a lot better going into this fall. There were 2 deer i knew of that were my top targets, one of them being the one I had shot last year (aside from the antlers being the same design as the year prior he had an obvious scar on his side where I hit him), the other buck, well we will get to that.
So almost 3 weeks ago now I discovered while shooting that the lower limb of my 16 year old DXT was cracked. Made the mistake of test shooting a new mathews lift and any thought of spending time and money on my old bow were quickly gone. Spend a lot of time the last two weeks shooting it multiple times a day to get as comfortable shooting it as I could (which wasn’t hard as it’s a sweet shooting bow). Thursday-Sunday was going to be ‘my time’ to bowhunt this year, that was until I came down with some kind of sinus cold this past week. With the weather being not so hot Thursday I rested up to put maximum effort into Friday.
Activity was surprisingly slow Friday morning, conditions were perfect but by 9am I’d only seen what I believe was a doe and 2 fawns at a distance, 3 coyotes and one small buck. The stand I’m in i know is a spot that cruising bucks will use later into the morning so I just held tight. About 930 I catch a glimpse of a deer coming and get myself ready. Through the brush I could see it was a buck but wasn’t sure how good. As soon as he stepped out it was pretty clear, this was the ‘other’ buck i knew about i was after. I drew back and about 3/4 of my draw cycle he notices me moving. Luckily he froze just long enough for me to anchor-aim-fire. He bounds off, no sign of my arrow in him, I thought the shot looked a little high but as I listened to him running off I heard that glorious sound that was undeniably him crashing. Complete pass though, I think some deflection occurred as he was not quartering to as much as the shot angle was but got lung and liver, he made it maybe 200 yards. First deer I’ve shot with expandable broadheads (grim reaper), I’ve got to say a blood trail that Ray Charles could follow is nice, though I knew roughly where he went down anyway.
But that was just the beginning of the fun. The valley he ran into has a logging road into it, but I’ve failed to clear that road for the last 3 years or so. He was 200 pounds field dressed so going up the steep sides of the valley wasn’t happening. Just shy of a full tank of fuel through the chain saw and I was able to re-open the log road and get him out but I was spent, thankfully the temps were good to let him hang overnight so I could recover. Note to self, next summer make sure all the log roads are cleared AND actually clear them.
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