Turned broadside at ~15 yards and I let it rip.
No the night pic is an absolute tank - 10 pointer that is likely 50+ lbs heavier than this 8 point.Stakem , is that the same big fat buck from your post just before?
This buck I harvested I do not believe was even on my radar. I will have to dig into older cam footage as I know he wasnt around recently.
Warning, long post.
Forecast was calling for rain tonight and thunderstorms tomorrow so I left work at lunch to sit in my stand from early afternoon until dark.
At 3:00 a button buck and young doe crept in behind me. 30 minutes after them 2 more little ones came in. After an hour of watching them feed on acorns the doe and button buck bedded down 25 yards from me. The 2 little ones wondered away and then started crying for mom.
They returned, still calling for mom. But mom was apparently in deep sleep and didnt respond. After they walked away, mom and the button buck jumped up and chased after them.
30 minutes later its just me and holy hell I had to take a piss. Its now just about 6:00 and there isnt much time left to hunt. I refuse to climb down outta my stand and decide to just whip it out and pee from 20 feet up. My stream hits the dry leaves and it sounds ridiculously loud. As I zip up, I hear leaves crashing/shuffling.
Yep, its a buck and I just wizzed everywhere. He came into my clearing with nose up and to my shock he started rubbing his head/nose on a limb. Turned broadside at ~15 yards and I let it rip. He took off out of eye sight behind some pines.
As I stand there replaying the shot in my head, I felt i had good placement on him but i let the arrow fly in-between 2 limbs. Man, I hope I didnt clip one of them. Oh, and by the way earlier in the day I saw a video about rage broadheads and realized I had mine set in the grooves instead of the collars so I fixed them all while sitting in the stand today.
After 30 minutes I climb down because now im panicking not knowing if I should or shouldnt have messed with the mechanical blades. I walk over to the point of impact and we got decent blood. I look at my phone and realize its suppose to start raining any second and I havent even started to track because it hasnt been an hour yet.
I slowly take baby steps tracking. Blood glistening on crispy leaves. And there he is. Holy shit, he maybe made it 10 yards. My shot was true, I double lung’d him and blasted the top part of his heart.
Well, I could not find any archived pics of my buck but upon review of my camera from this past week, he was captured at 9:30 pm on monday.
I am very grateful for this harvest but I cant help but think of the “what ifs.” Knowing this guy was previously creeping at 9:30 pm proves the 2 other buck I was dreaming about were capable of slipping up and walking by my stand during shooting hours as well.
The strength of these animals is incredible. I cannot believe he was even able to walk/run away from taking a broadhead through the heart.
Shot a few more quakers this morning in Big Valley CA.
Shot a few more quakers this morning in Big Valley CA.
Pretty emotional experience from the treestand yesterday.
My daughter is 8 and she has been asking to go deer hunting with me for the last couple years. Her mentored youth license arrived friday so I took her last night.
It was 30 degrees out and I had her wrapped it so many layers, you will see in the pic she wasnt even in full camo. Earlier in the day I went in and took sections out of my ladder stand so it wasnt too high for her and then I installed the deadshot shooting mount I bought for her that she had been practicing with.
Walking in, she looked at me. Gave me a hug and a kiss and said Daddy, thank you so much for taking me hunting. She thanked me about 6 different times in the 1.5 hours we were out. I knew she wanted to go but didnt realize it meant this much to her.
The first 30-45 minutes we sat and quietly talked about how good deer can see, smell and hear. She practiced taking aim at different trees, rocks and squirrels.
When she started to lose focus, I got out the tube and gave a few grunts. I also handed her a doe bleat can call and she thought that was amazing that she was calling too.
5 minutes later a buck comes crashing right at us. He came down the same run I shot my buck from! I was losing my mind. She took aim but he never gave her a clean shot. He slowly made his way away from us. But she looked at me with eyes wide open and said: THAT WAS SO COOL!
We kept her aim in that direction knowing he could come back at any moment. 15 minutes later 2 doe come in from the opposite direction. The smaller of the 2 was at 5 yards but she wanted to shoot the larger one which was at about 20 yards. She aimed, flipped the safety off and fired. I watched the bolt miss high.
I grabbed ahold of her and gave her the biggest hug. We talked about what needs to happen now that she took a shot. We spoke about why we wait and what we do next. We sat talking for about 20 minutes and then climbed down. We returned to my truck to drop off the crossbow, the shooting rest and the extra gear and we grabbed extra batteries for our flash lights. I knew she missed but we went looking anyway. No signs of blood, hair etc and we couldnt find her bolt... except for the knock which musta popped off on impact like she hit a rock. Gonna head out in about an hour to do a more thorough search for the missing bolt.
She was a little bummed she missed but also real happy to have seen a deer on her first time out. I told her this just means she has to practice more and get that next one!