PA 10 point Buck pics and story

Deerhunted · October 27, 2005

Wednesday morning did not start off too good for me as my car would not start. After about 30 minutes of fooling around with it and almost decided not to go out when I finally got it started. I got to my Clarion County treestand a little late and was all situated right as it was getting light out. About 20 minutes later a doe through at about 60yds. That was about 7:35 and was the last deer that I saw for the next couple of hours. Throughout the morning I was trying a few different series of calls and rattling with no success. I had already decided to leave the woods around 9 so that I could go home shower and get ready for my 11 oclock class. At about 8:55 I decided to do one more series of calls, so I used the can three times and a te-te-te-te-te grunt trying to imitate a buck tending a doe. Well about 5 minutes later I hear, what I later realized was a snort weeze, come from the right of me and then I see legs coming between the trees. At first glance he looked to be a decent 8pt. He came in ears back, stiff legged and looking for a fight. He began to angle his way to the back of my stand so once he got to about 12 yds broadside I stopped him, but when he stopped he quartered to me slightly. I put it right behind his shoulder and let the arrow fly. After the hit I saw my arrow sticking out of him what looked to be a least half of the arrow penetrating. I watched to see where he ran and marked the last spot where I saw him. Not wanting to push the buck I decided to not go look for the deer and opted to come back later with some friends of mine to help me track him.

So after my class and after I gathered up some of my friends we set out at about 12:30 to find my buck. At the spot of the shot there was no sign and no sign for a good 150 yds. That was until one of my buddies found the top half of my arrow. From that spot we were able to pick up a spotty blood trail that took us across a gravel road and into another set of woods. From there we could tell that he was heading towards water from the way he was heading. After about 250 more yards from finding the first half of the arrow we found the bottom half. After finding the bottom half though the blood stopped, no more sign. But we didn't need anymore sign because 30 yards ahead was my buck lying dead. I could not believe my eyes when I walked up to him because he was not an 8 pt but a 10 pt. After we began to field dress him I found that I put an X right through the center of one of his lungs and the arrow angled back into the guts. It just goes to show you how tough these animals are for being able to go 350-400 yds on one lung.

This is my biggest buck to date antler and body wise. He was pretty beat up too with scars on his neck, under his eye and a slit ear. We believe he is fighting a much bigger buck that we jumped while looking for him. He also had a broken off g-2 on the one side from fighting. This buck had a 16" spread with good mass, and his body size was estimated to be between 160-170 lbs. You could also tell he was really rutted up by the size of his neck, it measured 26". This guy was a real brute for a mountain deer. This is my best buck to date and am very proud of him and can't wait to have him on my wall.

This hunt took place in Clarion, County PA about 5 miles from Clarion University.

Well here is my attempt at putting pictures up. Click on the link and we'll see if this works.

http://photobucket.com/albums/d56/Deerhu...nt=S4010726.jpg

shockwave · October 27, 2005