DON’T GIVE UP
Wild Sika Deer on the Eastern Shore
We’ve all had the fortune to view those awesome photographs
of successful hunts in various magazines that depict the culmination
of countless hours of scouting, pre-planning, traveling to far
off hunting locations and luckily , the harvesting of a personal
trophy. These photos are usually aesthetically pleasing, taken
in an area with beautiful backgrounds and , in my case , usually
have me daydreaming about being there and having a similar moment
in about three seconds flat!
What those photos often don’t show are some of the more realistic, miserable, and down right bad luck things that can , and will, go wrong in the world of bowhunting. Don’t get me wrong! I love the sport, the people, and all the memories both have provided me . However, I believe, that to paint the proper picture of our sport and all that it stands for, we should include some of the less than perfect things that can happen on any given hunt.
One scenario that immediately comes to mind is not recovering
wounded game. I know there are many of us out there who will
say that they have never lost an animal. Good for them! I hope
they never have to deal with this problem . I also believe that
if you spend a large amount of time pursuing big game with bow
and arrow, eventually you will be presented with the option of
giving up , or continuing the search for a wounded animal. Any
experienced bowhunter will tell you that a lot can go wrong in
the instance between the time you commit to releasing the arrow
and the time that arrow reaches your intended
target. A whole lot has to go right, and a whole lot can go wrong.
During a recent hunt for the elusive Sika deer with Steve Rupert’s Shore Bet Outfitters, I was handed a personal dose of Murphy’s Law. I was hunting a stand in some hardwoods near a marsh bordering the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s eastern shore. Prime Sika habitat. These miniature elk, native to Japan, were released in the wild near the turn of the century and now thrive in the marshy areas so abundant there. They are almost totally nocturnal, very elusive, and hard to bowhunt.
When we split up to go to our stands on Tuesday morning it was still raining and the temperature had dropped around thirty degrees overnight. Just after first light, the rain stopped, and I had a good feeling about the day's hunt. Steve’s partner and head guide, Bill Ozman, was really excited . The area had experienced a long drought, and the overnight rain, combined with the drop in temperature, brought promise of moving Sikas this morning. Hunting the day prior, miserable with the severe heat and overly hungry mosquitoes, was even more frustrating due to the bugling of stags, signaling the approaching rut.
The spike stag came in just after first light. I couldn't believe how spooky and nervous these animals are. After about 20 minutes, he finally presented me with a 22 yard broadside shot. I released , and the arrow found it’s mark. He ran about 20 yards and then started walking slowly away through the woods and out of sight. After the mandatory nail biting time, I climbed down and started looking for my arrow. Nowhere to be found! Worse yet, in the soggy ground, no blood trail. The only approach left was a search and rescue type grid search in the area I last saw him for the blood trail. After about 30 yards I found the stag bedded. Unfortunately he spotted me also and hauled off into the marsh. After marking the spot I returned to camp, shot at some targets and worked on my gear - trying to keep busy.
I should note that while I was confident about shot placement, I did find my arrow on that first day in the area where the stag was bedded. The arrow showed little sign of blood and small pieces of grassbag material. How could this be? I saw the arrow flight and believed I had made a good shot. Was the shot too far back? I didn’t think so. Finding the stag would answer those nagging questions.
That evening found us back in the marsh working the ole grid
pattern search again. Finding the animal this way would be extremely
difficult since the tide had risen, flooding the area. That,
coupled with the high grasses, limited visibility to about five
yards. Not exactly ideal conditions for finding a downed animal.
The following day was spent hunting a stand in the early morning and late evening hours and searching the adjoining hardwoods during mid day, south along the marsh, in the hopes that the stag had circled back out of the marsh looking for dry land to bed in and expire. No words can describe how I felt at this point. While I had high hopes of recovering the animal this morning, at this point, things were not looking all that good. The guide, Bill, kept reassuring me that we had a good chance of recovering the stag and that I shouldn’t give up yet. It was evident at this point, that I wouldn’t be packing my coolers with Sika venison. There was still the outside chance that we could recover the cape for mounting purposes (this was after all, my first Sika stag).
After hunting a morning stand on Thursday, I headed out to search the area of hardwoods north along the marsh. At this point I was feeling really frustrated and ready to give up the rest of the hunt to stomp around the remaining two days and search for the stag. The question about shot placement was really starting to nag at me in the worst way. Everyone at camp kept reassuring me. Saying things like "while no one wants to put a bad shot on an animal, it can happen to even the most seasoned of bowhunters". I still found no comfort in the pep talks! I just had to find this animal.
As I was leaving my stand, Bill came along and informed me that the buzzards (hereafter to be referred to as feather pointers) had taken up residence in some trees about sixty yards out into the marsh from where I last saw the stag. We immediately searched the area where the buzzards were roosting and found nothing.
That evening I returned with my stand and binoculars in the hope that I would either jump up the buzzards or scan from my stand and locate the stag from high in a tree. The latter worked. After hanging my stand, I scanned the area. Just forty yards from the tree I chose to place the stand was something white that resembled the shape of a deer’s ear. I immediately climbed down and waded through the marsh to investigate and found the stag on a small island lying against the trunk of a pine tree. Even in it’s decomposed state I was able to determine that I had indeed made a good shot. The stag had traveled about two hundred yards to reach this spot.
The entry wound was right behind the front shoulder. I did notice that the rib was intact and have considered that maybe my broadhead glanced off the rib and turned towards the stomach section, rather than the area of the vitals. The exit side of the animal had spent two and a half days alternating between dry ground and under water and was too badly decomposed to tell.
While the animals of the marsh would be the only creatures to enjoy the venison from this stag, I felt good about finding it and answering my shot placement questions. I’m not so sure my taxidermist is going to feel so good about me finding the stag, but that’s the business he chose.
Persistence is the key. DON’T GIVE UP! We could have walked away from the stag on any of the three days after the shot. We chose to continue the search and were rewarded with finding the animal. At this point I can say that the animal was recovered instead of carrying around the memory of the one that got away. That has to be better!
The people associated with Shore Bet’s operation for the Sika hunt were first rate and I would recommend the hunt to anyone looking for a challenging hunt. The Sika is an elusive animal, and anything a hunter manages to harvest with a bow should be considered a trophy.