It is going to be an anxious evening.....

[nbadger23]

I hit a good buck at 3:10 today and am going to wait until 7 or so until I go look. It seemed to be a good hit and I thought he mule kicked at impact. I did not find an arrow or blood but I only looked for 10 yards or so because I didn't want to risk pushing him. The possibility of rain has me a little on edge right now but there's nothing I can do about it. Its times like these a person wishes they videotaped their hunts so I could confirm on film what I thought I saw.

[grapeapplepie]

Good luck with your recovery as it sounds like you made a good hit, don't let the "doubt" take over!

[mainbutter]

Good luck! I understand the "videotape" comment, I have virtually no good memory of the actual events of any shots I've taken (bow OR firearm), I think because the excitement was just too darn high. I couldn't tell you how any of my deer reacted in those 5 seconds, other than a general idea of what direction they ran.

[Boar]

Good luck, hope ya get him.

[tunrevir]

With the rain moving in I hope you got back out after him. Sounds like a good shot and it never hurts to wait. Good luck, makes for some restless times while waiting but it usually pays dividends in the end. Hope to see some pics tomorrow after I get back in from the woods!

Tunrevir~

[nbadger23]

Just got back after 3 hours of tough tracking. The blood was very sparse and it was coming out the entry wound side so I knew I didn't get full pass through. We found the arrow 120 yards away. I got a good 10" of penetration so I'm guessing it either hit a rib or the other shoulder. It looked like there was lung matter on the broad head but I can't be sure. I know it wasn't fat and it wasn't meat. After the arrow came out the tracking was a bit easier but not much. One would think that with that arrow bouncing around in there for 120 yards it did quite a bit of damage.

I decided to quit as we were approaching a road and an open field. We were about 220 yards from impact. I'm torn as to if that was the right decision or not but mentally I was spent as much of the tracking was on hands and knees and physically I was starting to get pretty tired as well. I was also concerned still about possibly pushing him because he had not laid down yet.

I marked the last spot and will be back at it in the morning. Unfortunately the weather is gonna hurt me as it's going to rain later tonight but I'll have to deal with that.

I did hear some coyotes earlier in the night, quite a was off, but that made me cringe. We don't have a lot of them but I've started hearing them on and off in the past month. I'm hoping daylight will be the help that I need.

[hockeybc69]

Hey badger

On the qdma forums there is recent chatter about bloodglow.

A guy in illinois used it to track a deer a lonnggg ways.

Never used it myself but it works after rain i guess. i have read about it in the last few days.

Just thought i would toss it out as a thought.

Good luck.

[Archerysniper]

It's been 8 hours go out and get your trophy before the rain hits. What you described sounds like you hit the oppsite sholder quartering away taking one lung.

[nbadger23]

I went back out around 7:30 this morning. I checked the blood from last night that I had marked and could still see most of the spots so that was a welcome sight. I then was able to pick up new blood and followed it close to the road. I went to the other side of the road and checked a few trails. On the second trail I found a dime size piece of lung.... and then it started pouring. Given that I don't have permission to be on this land and I know someone is hunting it I backed out and came home.

The plan is now to try to get permission (the land has changed hands in the last year or so and I don't know who bought it) and round some help up to do a grid search as I'm guessing any blood is now being washed away. I tracked a doe on almost this same path 5 years ago and found her 50 yards into the woods across the road so I'm hoping we get the same result.

I'm really hoping that once he made it across the road he laid down and expired. Finding an actual piece of lung made me feel pretty good that he's close but the are dam tough animals.

[Boar]

good luck bud, keep positive.

[grapeapplepie]

good luck bud, keep positive.

+1

[muskE]

+20 for your dedication

I know some people would have given up by now.

[nbadger23]

Success! Pics and story to come later when i dry out and my teeth quit chattering :-) Thanks for all the encouragement.

[Boar]

Awsome!!!! Cant wait for pics way to hang in ther.

[Jeff13]

Congrats!

[no bait nate]

Great work!

[DonBo]

Happy to hear!

[grapeapplepie]

Great news! I can't wait to see the pics!

[snoozebutton]

Success! Pics and story to come later when i dry out and my teeth quit chattering :-) Thanks for all the encouragement.

Good for you and way to keep at it!!!

[nbadger23]

Let me start by saying that I love reading all of the stories that are posted on here and I really enjoy those with a lot of detail so I'll probably write a fairly lengthy story as that's what I enjoy.. my apologies and warnings to those who like shorter versions :-)

The hunt itself was VERY short so I'm going to give a little background to kind of set the stage. We are in SE MN and we own 5 acres with our house. 3 of which is which is what I view as huntable land but we are surrounded by woods and other plots that are 5-20 acres. The woods consists of large oak, cottonwood, and a ton of buckthorn, which makes for very short visibility (i.e. less than 30 yards) in most circumstances.

I have another unique circumstance in that in my 10 years of hunting this area, I can count the # of bucks I've seen prior to Oct 25th on one hand. I know they are there, but the are either very nocturnal prior to that or the buckthorn keeps the sightings down. Given that, I didn't hunt much after shooting my doe earlier this year as I didn't want to burn anything out with such low odds of seeing a buck but once Oct 25th hit I have sat every morning but 2 since then.

Those hunts have been enjoyable, peaceful, frustrating, thrilling, boring, cold, comfortable, and just about every other emotion you can think of when you put a lot of time in the stand. I missed a pretty decent 10 on Oct 29th and had a decent buck bedded down with a doe last weekend about 50 yards behind me with no shot but other than that it had been a lot of smaller bucks so I was wondering if it was going to come together or not.

Yesterday really got the blood pumping however. I sat a stand in the morning that is over a scrape line and a stand which I just set this year as the neighbor gave me permission to cross onto his land 100 yards or so. I've known for a few weeks that I set it in the wrong spot, but I just haven't had the time or energy to move it and I paid for it as a magnificent 10 pt came through with a doe and simply never got close enough. He did of course walk within 10 yards of the tree I want to have the stand in

I was a little depressed as I got down from the stand later that day. It felt like after the miss of the 10 pt and this one slipping by me that things just aren't going to work out this year.

I contemplate not hunting that evening as it will give me enough time to complete all the outside projects and be ready for any bad weather coming our way but with the ugly forecast for Sunday I am not sure what to do. Evening hunting has not been very productive for me so it's a toss up.

Around 2:30, I finish up outside and head in to clean up and decide to hit my stand on top of the hill. This is the first stand I ever put up on our property and is between a bedding area and two small food plots I've put in. It yielded a 140" deer two years ago and can be productive this time of year, but mostly in the morning. I choose it because of the food plots (with the upcoming weather) and the wind coming out of the bedding area and towards me, to my advantage.

You'd think by now that I'd have my "getting ready" routine down to a science but the combination of the warm weather and my boyfriend doing some laundry that mistakingly included my normal gear (and it not being dry) put me in a slight panic and running late as I couldn't get the right combination of clothes together. I finally started towards my stand at 3:05 and made the walk up the hill slowly as it was very warm. My heart sank a bit as I kicked two does up 20 yards from my stand but at least they didn't blow at me so that was encouraging.

I had raked a trail to my stand so I can enter very quietly, which I think was a very big help in this situation. I tied my bow to my pull rope and draped my jacket over it and up I went. As soon as I got up, I pulled my bow up and nocked an arrow, removed my quiver, and then went on to my normal routine of getting my calls out and getting my clothing situated. My jacket was hanging on my tree stick and I had no hat on yet as I was cooling down. I had my pack sitting on my seat and was unpacking it when I heard a noise in the leaves to my right. I remember thinking that it was probably a squirrel and didn't pay as close of attention to it as a I normally would have. When I heard it again I glanced over and all I saw was antler, and it was within 15 yards!!

It's so thick in that direction that I can't see very far as it is but with me being focused on unpacking and being a bit preoccupied with being late and such he got much closer than normal w/o me spotting him. Thankfully there were some very large oak trees behind me and him so I was able to grab my bow. He now had his head behind a a big tree, at about 10 yards and I wasn't quite sure what to do. He was either going to come straight at me, which they usually do, or he was going to keep walking and stay broadside. If I drew now and he came straight at me I'd have to let down at some point and reposition after he got past me, which could get tricky. If I didn't draw and he walked out and stayed broadside my window would be gone.

I decided to draw and thankfully he stepped out and stayed broadside. I gave him a short mouth grunt and he stopped. I picked my spot behind the shoulder and let drive. He ran off and as I watched I said "what in the world just happened??" Then the shakes started. I hadn't even hooked my safety strap in yet so I made sure to do that and tried to take in everything that had just happened. All the long sits and countless hours of looking at nothing but trees and squirrels had come down to a hunt that spanned less than 2 minutes in the stand... how weird things can turn out some times!

I called my Dad, which is my normal routine as he taught me how to bow hunt and I trust his judgement. We talked through the scenario and we both agreed that waiting at least 4 hours was a good thing. As he's always told me... "if it's dead, it ain't going anywhere." I know a lot of people would have wanted to track it in the daylight but I'm comfortable tracking in the dark so after waiting a half hour I got down and headed back to the house. I did have to laugh at my boyfriend's comment. He was immersed in college football stuff and he said to me.. "did you find your fleece shirt yet??" He didn't think I'd even gone hunting yet :-) When I told him I'd already been to the stand and shot a nice buck he was quite surprised.

I documented the tracking story earlier but I will add that it was some of the toughest tracking I've ever done. All in all in took 5 hours and a lot of that was spent tediously examining 5-10 ft of ground at a time looking for a drop of blood. There was only like a 20 yard stretch where I could walk and see it w/o stopping and we figure he went about 400 yards. There were multiple times where I'd have my boyfriend stand at the last blood and I'd go off searching. Somehow, some way I'd find more blood and we'd be off again. There's always hope and enthusiasm when you can find that next blood spot. Finding the piece of lung on the opposite side of the road this morning was like a beacon from above, especially with all the rain. There was more than one occasion that I played a hunch as to where to look for sign next and that thankfully played off.

When I found that piece of lung, I went back to the house and made some phone calls to get permission to keep tracking. I was blown away by the reaction I got from the one neighbor, who I've never met. Two minutes in the conversation he not only gives me permission but asks if I want some help! Keep in mind that 1)I've never met him and 2)It's downright nasty outside with rain, wind, and cold temps. I gladly take him up on his offer and as we walk up the road he tells me that it's likely not on his land but he knows the guy who owns it and it will be ok if we go in. Well, as we get closer to the trail where I found the lung he says.. hmm, this isn't Bob's land, this is the guy who owns the 20 acre parcel and who's truck is up there in the driveway so we know he's hunting.

We're a little stumped as to what to do right now because we don't want to screw up anyone's hunt and I really don't want to anger him by trespassing w/o ever having met him as it's not exactly a good way to meet someone for the first time. As luck would have it, a truck stops as we are standing there and it happens to be a guy who knows the landowner. He was suspicious of what we were doing so he stopped. We had a good conversation with him and he called the guy who was hunting and cleared it with him that we go in. I am very appreciative for his cooperation and aim to do the same for anyone who ever needs it on our land.

We weren't 50 yards in the woods and my neighbor spotted him. I was so relieved at that point I just wanted to sit there and take it in. This season has had it's ups and downs just like many of you have experienced and when it all comes together it's a great sense of relief, pride, and joy.

On a side note, I write messages on all of my arrow fletchings. Some are encouragement, some are reminders about my form, and some are as simple as "BBD" but this particular arrow was a personal message regarding a good friend who had passed away less than a month ago. He was an avid hunter and was taken from this world way too early. It felt good to pay tribute to him in this way.

The shot was a good shot, despite the poor blood trail. It obliterated one lung and nicked the other. I do pay the price sometimes for only shooting 45 lbs but I wouldn't change a thing with my setup as it works for me.

Thanks again for all the encouragement and best of luck to those still hunting. For me, it's a week of sleeping in until I head up to Wisconsin to gun hunt with my Dad, which is something I always look forward to.

[CrewJones]

great deer and great story, everything came together for you and you probably had someone helping you

[Mr.Seaguar]

Beautiful buck and a great story

[Scoot]

Wonderful- congratulations!

[grapeapplepie]

I'm very happy for you. A beautiful buck and a wonderful story!

[Boar]

That is so cool, Congratulation on a job well done. Love the fletching bit, awsome.