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Day 6

Morning Hunt

November 11th

With two days left I decided to hunt Larry's Creek this morning. I got there well before dark and waited for the action. Unfortunately the action happened before light when a herd of 12 cows came in and camped out under my stand for about 90 minutes. They were driving me crazy, and there was no deer around due to it. I got down and chased them off which made more noise than if I let them hang around. So I had very little optimism that I would see any deer, let alone a shooter.

At 9:15 I heard my first deer moving through the cedars. I could only see legs but it was definately coming in. I reached to turn on my camera and looked down and it was a really big 8 point, probably mid 150's buck. I wanted to shoot it except it was staring at me. He caught me reaching to turn on my camera and was instantly alarmed. I froze and sat motionless for at least two minutes. Then he seemed to calm down a little and started to hit the feeder. But he always kept looking at me so I remained as still as possible. My bow was hanging from the arm and I needed to be really cautious to not blow this big deer out. He finally turned his head and I was able to grab the bow and wait for a good angle. He was perfect now and when he turned his head away I drew and pivoted in my seat for a chip shot. He must have caught some movement because he turned to leave and for a split second gave me a hard, quartering away angle. This is actually one of my favorite shots and I have never missed with it. Unfortuately that streak ended today.

When I shot, the arrow hit 3" high and I knew immediately it was a bad hit. The arrow made a crack and I had half the arrow sticking out as he ran away. The buck ran north into the CRP. I waited a few minutes before replaying the shot on my video camera. It confirmed what I thought, the shot was high, poor penetration, and there was not going to be much blood. I called Kent and told him to head down. It was not a gut hit at all. Because it was such a hard quartering away angle the shot hit the hip. There's a lot of arteries up into the hip so there was a chance I may have gotten lucky. I walked the first 60 yards of the trail. There was a blood trail, but there was no indication that I got an aortic hit. So I backed out, and would come back in 5 hours.

At 3:30 we took up the trail. We followed it for about 200 yards and jumped the buck. He was as strong as ever. He ran about 300 yards before we lost him. Not a drop of blood. We all agreed the deer appeared to be healthy. I can't say I'm 100% confident that he'll survive, but after seeing him run off the odds are, he will be. My hunt is over, when you draw blood your done. It's a policy I agree with, even if the hit was superficial or not.

It's been a tough week followed by a heartbreaking ending. As you know, we give you guys the unvarnished truth on these live hunts. When things go great, you get to read about them, when things don't well you get to experience that too.

As long as I draw, we'll be back next year to try again.