close call

[korn_fish]

Just about pulled a bone head move this morning, well actually I did pull one but nearly pulled another.

at 7:15 this morning, I had what I thought was two does approach me, they were coming pretty quick and the first one (bigger one) was definitely a doe but didnt move into my shooting lane. The second(avg one) did run into my shooting lane and I was able to get it stopped broadside by stearnly saying "hey". I let one fly at 40 ( i thought it was under 35) yards and it hit the deer low and forward. the deer jumped straight up but didnt run away, but I could see I hit him in the front leg and it just stood there wobbling on three legs wondering what happened. It went about 5 yards and into another clearing and stood there. Now it was about 30 yards. I knocked another arrow and pulled back...but the stretchy tube that keeps the peep sight alligned correctly had broke my previous shot. I didn't think I had time to fix it before the deer would see me or run off, so I guesstimated and just made sure the peep covered up all the pins and hoped I would be close enough with the shot. But I needed to shoot again because I didnt think the first shot was enough to bring the deer down, and if it did bring it down, it was going to be a long tracking and risk losing the deer and just an unhumane effort to just let a deer suffer that long. So I let the second arrow fly. Because of the brush, I couldn't really see where it hit, but I knew I had hit it again because I heard the thwack. It now ran 40 yards and I could see it go down. At this point in time, I thought I just arrowed an average sized doe. And since I didn't know exactly how good of second shot I had, I wanted to wait an hour before I went to retreive it even though I seen it go down.

Well, right about when I was thinking about scaling down the tree in my climber, I seen two does being chased by a really nice buck. I was in a perfect funnel area and I knew they were going to be no further than 40 yards on either side of me when they came through. Thinking that I had a doe down, I let the two does go by since I have the all season license and could still take a buck. The big buck was within 30 yards but no shot. It walked close enough to the downed deer and must have smelt him and blood, so he bolted.

So I got out of the tree and went to retreive my doe. As I approched it, low and behold it was a one antlered yearling buck, and the one antler was broken off about 4 inches from the base.

So I guess I was lucky that I didn't shoot that second buck. But I'm pretty dissapointed at myself for making such a poor first shot and taking a yearling. Iv'e prided myself with passing on anything less than 2+ year-olds and 8+ point deer in the past. But I am sure dang happy that I was lucky on my second shot as it was a money shot (double lung pass through). It has been a long time since I had to sit in a tree stand with my heart sitting in the bottom of my gut waiting to see if it was a good harvest. And I hope it never happens to me again.

[Lunker]

Without a scope in can be hard to see those little broken or undeveloped horns sometime. Just be glad you got the deer, and good second shot. Well, even with being dissapointed with the little buck, it was an accident, and I'm sure the meant will be tasty. Just had some chops myself, yummy.