First Bow Buck DOWN!!!!

FullStrutter

By FullStrutter
in Bowhunting

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FullStrutter

FullStrutter

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I know we as hunters like reading hunting stories, it's why we get all the magazines. So I figured I'd write a nice story about this exciting hunt that I will never forget. So here it is, my big buck story, the whole experience...

Sometime on Thursday afternoon, while checking the weather for Saturday, I saw the confirmation that it looked like the only day of the week that I get to hunt was going to be a wash out. High winds and heavy rains were predicted, and I was bumming. Right about that same time I had an idea. Considering the weather looked picture perfect for the following morning, Friday the 27th, I decided right then that I'd come in an hour late to work the next day and get in a nice morning hunt.

Thursday evening my friend Matt, myself, a couple of friends, and all of our girls got together for a wild game dinner consisting of marinated grilled venison steaks, wild sauteed mushrooms, and fried striper and fluke. It was outstanding. One nice addition that my friend Mo brought was a great tasting beer called Archer's Ale. We all toasted right before chowing down.

I hit the hay by 9:15 that evening and 5:00AM couldn't come soon enough. With temps predicted to dip below freezing, I knew the morning was going to be magical. Over dinner the evening before, Matt and I discussed where we thought we would hunt the following morning. He actually had the day off already and was planning to go hunting by himself, but now he told me his mission was to put me on my first bow buck, and he was determined. Previously, I had only been able to harvest a handful of does over the last few years. A couple of close buck encounters with bow in hand and nothing to show for it had me wanting it more than ever this fall.

We met at our rendezvous place at 5:30AM and proceeded to the parking spot at one of his state land honey holes. The plan we that he was going to set me up in his stand, a tree that he has had some great success from this fall and last! As we walked in, climbers on back, I couldn't help but smile. Frost covered the ground so heavily that it glistened brightly in the flashlight beams. It was the type of cold that makes your breath thick and crystalized. We followed Matt's GPS and it led us right to his tree, which we confirmed by seeing the EZ-hanger he left screwed in up the tree. After telling me which way to position the climber and which way the deer generally traversed the area, we pounded fists with a "good luck brotha" and he was gone, heading for his area which would be about 125 yards away. After I attached my climber to the tree and was ready to climb, I took my bottle of Trails End #307 and dipped a scent wick into it, hanging it on a nearby tree.

I was setup and ready in my Summit climber, 24 feet off the ground by 6:10AM. The inky pre-dawn darkness was still wrapped around me as I awaited first light. It was very still in the woods. Besides the occasional autumn leaf falling and touching down on the crispy forest floor, not a sound was to be heard. Dawn finally broke and with it, dark turned to grey, and grey turned to light. I noticed when I could see my pins for the first time, and it was 6:31AM. As the dimmer switch slowly moved, the whole area opened up. By 7:15AM it was full light and I took notice of all my surroundings, lasering different trees for known distances. I was in a beautiful transition area with trails in sight. As the sun came up over the horizon around 7:30 the woodlot filled with warming sunlight. A light breeze rustled through the treetops causing hundreds of yellow and orange leaves to slowly descend to the ground. It was glorious and I was thankful to be enjoying it.

I had been switching between standing and sitting every 30 minutes or so, and around 8:00 I stood up. It was just about crunch time, as Matt mentioned earlier that the buck he shot in Sept from this stand was taken at 8:30. I was scanning the local scenery as usual, about 10 minutes later, when I caught a movement about 100 yards away. It was a brown shape moving through the sunlight patches of the underbrush and instantly I affiliated that it was a deer. I love catching deer from stand when they are that far away. I grabbed my bow in a smooth semi-quick motion and within seconds I was facing the deer's direction with bow in hand.

I grabbed my laser and ranged a couple trees for updated yardages, and in between measurements I would look up and check on the deer's progress. It was official, it was heading right my way. About that time he was 70-80 yards away and just meandering nice and relaxed. I checked it out in my rangefinder 3x magnification and it was at that point I noticed he was carrying some nice headgear!!! In that insta-second my heart rate multiplied exponentially. I put the laser back into my pocket and forced myself to look down for a second. I took a few deep breaths and told myself to stay calm. Steadily, the big buck was working my way, and as he crossed the 50 yard line, I saw that his rack was wide and tall and I told myself not to look at it again. Instead I focused on his body, which as he ambled closer and closer, I realized this was a huge bodied deer. When he approached inside of 30 yards my chest was noticeably shaking with every heartbeat. I silently clipped my release onto my loop as I watched him lick his nose a couple times. I also noticed him tilt his head into the air trying to catch the currents. Not sure if he was scent checking for does or was coming in to my scent bomb.

There was not a twig between me and him, and he was coming directly on a beeline for my tree. I wasn't sure when or how I was going to be able to draw. At about 25 yards, knowing I was pretty high up in the tree and hopefully a little movement wouldn't be detected... I started to draw the Switchback XT. I have never drawn my bow that slowly in my entire life. I was so pumped with adrenaline the exercise was effortless. It had to have taken a full 5 or 6 seconds to come to full draw, and I remember thinking as I drew that the slight noise made was being covered up nicely by the consistently falling leaves touching down on the ground.

The next 8 seconds were a blur and I can't really remember what I did, as instinct took over. I do remember after drawing that he happened to stop right around mid draw and turned quartering to. I brought the kisser button to the corner of my mouth, centered the pin right behind his shoulder through the peep, and touched off the first arrow that ever flew at a deer from my new Switchback. I distinctly remember the loud WHACK as the arrow connected solidly and the Spitfire mechanical opened, burying the arrow right through what appeared to be the boilerworks. Upon impact the buck wheeled, trotted about 30 yards with tail down, and stopped, looking around. Initially this didn't look like what I expected to see, but then I saw him wavering a little. After a minute or so of looking around, he proceeded to walk really slowly, and it appeared he was hunched up a little bit. I thought it seemed strange as I watched him through the bino's that were shaking insanely. He went another 50 yards and I saw him put his knee down and I thought I saw him bed down. Strange behavior I felt for a deer that I thought was double lunged.

I called Matt right after that and was going nuts on the phone saying I just shot a big 8 pointer!!! At first he was like, you're joking right?? You just shot an 8 pointer? But quite quickly he realized the tone and excitement in my voice. Right about the time I heard a loud thrashing sound and I looked over in the direction of where the deer was and saw him crashing around down into a shallow ditch. I yelled into the phone he just went down! he's down!! So Matt said alright don't move, I'm coming over right now. While he was coming over I called my hunting buddy Mo and told him and he said "the Archer's Ale was in your blood man!"

It took Matt about 15 minutes to get down and get over to me. I directed him to the area where the deer was standing when I fired. He found the arrow right away, sticking out of the ground, full pass through, and covered with good blood. The blood trail started right there and was solid. So I said OK hold on, let me get down and we'll go check him out together. Took me 5 minutes to get down and we were on the trail soon, following good blood. Not that we had to really follow it because I knew where he was laying, it was just part of the ritual.

Well, at this point it was about 20-25 minutes after the shot, close to the recommended time to let a deer sit after the shot. We were openly walking following the blood trail when a great commotion in front of us broke out, we looked up, and much to my extreme amazement, my buck got up and hightailed it! confused.gif As we watched him depart, we could clearly see he was in rough shape. It actually looked like the death run you see after a perfect shot. What the heck!!??? Wow, that was the last thing either of us expected. We went back to the area of the shot, examined the arrow, and discussed possiblities. First of all, we noticed amongst the frozen coating of blood on the arrow a few specs of grit. Now the story was starting to make sense. After reenacting the shot angle, based on the angle the arrow was sticking out of the ground, distance of the shot, what I remembered about how much he was quartering, how high I was in the tree, and where I remembered seeing the arrow hit him... we deduced that the arrow must have only taken out one lung, definately liver, and apparently part of the stomach. What we agreed on for sure was this was a dead deer that should be recoverable, the question was, do we wait and if so how long. We decided, based on the fact that there was bubbles in the bloodtrail that we had been following, that there was a good chance the buck died on that run after we jumped him. So, we followed the trail a short ways, saw where he came to the edge of the river, indicated by fresh tracks in the mud on the bank and a drop of blood right next to them, and decided to pull out. We would go back home, change into tracking clothes, get some food, and come back in a couple of hours.

Couple hours later found us back in the woods on the other side of the river. We realized that directly across from where the buck entered the river was too steep for him to attempt to scale, so with the help of Matt's friend Rob, Matt and Rob went one way up the river, and I went the other way. We were looking for areas the deer might have went upstream or downstream to in order to get up the bank. Well, I hadn't gone 30 yards when a thought occured to me... what if the deer never made it across? What if he's under water? No sooner had the thought crossed my mind I found my eyes scanning the river in front of me and right there, in the middle of the river was a big brown hump! I YELLED MATTT!!!! They both came running over. Yes, indeed, it was my deer... and yes it was in the middle of the shallow river. Apparently he never made it to the other side, and he was a little ways downstream from where we saw that he entered the river initially, which is probably why we never saw him. Matt said it was probably about 2-2.5 feet deep out there, above the height of my Muck boots, so we went back to the car and grabbed Matt's waders. Soon, we were back in the woods and I was suited up and ready to go swimming to get my buck! Man was it exciting and relieving. I was pumped when I finally put my hands around his antlers. It was at that point I noticed he was a 7 pointer, his left brow tine never grew in. This was the first time seeing the rack close up and it was bigger than I thought it was. We also realized after a bunch of pictures sessions, and especially after we started dragging him out, that he was reeeeeally heavy. We were guessing 170lbs+ dressed, but Al our friend who runs a home butchering operation weighed him for me and reported back the next day that he dressed at 186lbs! That puts his calculated live weight somewhere around 235lbs, what a horse by Connecticut's standards.

I couldn't be happier. It was one of the best day's I've ever spent in the deer woods, and doing it all with a good friend made it even better.

Some pictures:

Going swimming for my buck!

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Matt and I

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Think he made this or is there a bigger guy around??

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Can't wait to get back out into the woods!

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