crossbow success thread

[mikebohio]

this is the best buck i have captured on my trailcams this year. for some reason unknown to me none of the many apple trees on this property produced apples. they all flowered but not apple one. i really think it put a damper on the buck count. my food plot drowned. i feel lucky to have taken him on opening morning. normally i probably would have passed him so early in the season but this will be the first year for my 9 year old justin to hunt deer. this also was the first time for me to video a hunt. i learned a valuable lesson. there is a huge diffrence between shooting light and video light.lol. i got great AUDIO of the hunt. so hear is the hunt story. got to my parking spot at about 530am. it takes only ten minutes to get to my stand from my brothers driveway. on the short walk in i heard a deer blow. it sounded like only a few yards away. i thought to myself that this just ruined my morning hunt. got to my stand and setteled in waiting for daylight. at first light got my rangefinder out and started preranging some spots. no sooner as i started i caught some motion out of the corner of my eye. put the rangefinder down turned on my camera and grabbed my bow. the buck walked in my shooting lane and stopped quartering away. he had no idea i was there he was completely relaxed. i took advantage or this to make sure i got some good video. i pulled the tenpoint up and got a good solid rest. he was preranged at 25 yards so i put him between the first and second crosshairs. aimed back to exit at the opposite shoulder. when i let the bolt fly there was the unmistakeable whack. the buck kicked and dashed into the thick brush. i heard him crash almost immediately. i started texting all my friends to let them know i let the air out of one. i know i always enjoy getting thier text in the stand. didnt hear anything out of the deer for about 40 min so i decided to get down and look for blood. to my supprise i couldnt find any on the ground. followed the path i knew he went into the brush and started to find good bubbley bright red blood higher on the brush. i knew i got lungs at this point. he ended up being only 30 yards from where i stuck him but let me tell you it was a tough 30 yards to get to. after leaving a pretty good blood trail of my own through the briars i recovered him. made a real good shot. the rage cut a huge entrance hole in him but the guts closed it up. i didnt get a passthrough, i am getting use to that with the rage,luckily he was spitting good blood out his mouth. i tagged him up but didnt want to gut him so close to my stand. dont need anymore yotes there than i already have. it was ruff dragging him back through the briars but luckily i can get a truck real close to the area. took some pics and gutted him out. it was getting pretty warm out so i drove him over to the nearest convienient store and packed him full of ice and covered him with a blanket. i normally like to hang them for awhile but it was way to warm. another one of my buddies scored that morning so we decided to butcher them together that night. the icepack and blanket worked surprisingly well. when i went home to check the video it was completely black. could hear it well but no video at all,bummer. hopefully i can get my boys on vid. hope i didnt ramble on too much for you.

[PA_Spike_King]

:clap: Good going there Mike. I didn't even get my crossbow out yesterday but there will be lots of time as I hate to hunt in the rain.

[the one]

con grats

[gobblerroller]

Where exactly did you hit the deer?

[jbeck]

Nice buck, love those quartering away shots.

[hammerforged]

Nice buck - Congrats!

[dbHunterNY]

Congrats again Mike.