Made a short weekend trip to the lease this weekend and man did it pay off! We only had 4 hunts to get it done and planned on leaving Sunday morning after our traditional buck only hunt on the last morning and shooting this ole boy made it all worth it.
We got settled in at our "Sunday Morning" stand around 6:00 that morning with the feeder set to go off at 6:40. It was a longer 40 minutes than most and I would be lying if I said that my eyes stayed open the entire time. Approximately 6:15 rolls around and we start to hear the crunching of corn at our chum logs and can start to see the outline of a couple of deer and can only begin to see main beams through the binoculars. Immediately, thoughts start rushing into my mind about what deer these could possibly be. After what seem like the longest 20 minutes of just sitting there listening to these deer vacuum our corn off of our 20 yard chum logs, the feeder finally goes off and amazingly, the deer only pick their head up, watch the feeder throw corn and then put their head right back down and continue eating on our 20 yard logs. A few minutes pass and the tines start to become visible on the bucks that we have in front of us and nothing really seemed all that impressive at the time. A young 10, a spike and what we originally thought was an 8 point ( he had his backside facing us for a good while) all ate in front of us while a few deer made their way into the feeder. At some point the "8 point" turned broadside to us and I noticed that he was indeed a 10 point with meat hooks for brow tines. I instantly knew that this was a deer that we had on camera from before the season that I called the "Gnarly 10" and my blood started pumping.
For those who were wondering why I kept saying we, my dad and I hunt together a lot because we both enjoy the time and experience together and we like to video each other's shots. We typically always hunt this spot together on the last morning because we make it a quick sit and knowing it is a buck only hunt makes it that much sweeter to experience when one of us are able to connect on these final hunts. Anyways, we talk it over for a while to try and determine his age and score to make sure he was a deer we could agree to harvest and ultimately decided that he was one worth taking.
Now the fun began! I grabbed my bow and set it on my knee and clipped my release on! He starts walking around and pushing other 3.5 - 4.5 year old bucks off of his corn. He gets quartered away in one of my shooting lanes but I could not get drawn back because there is another 10 point with his head up looking our way (at the time I thought he was looking at us) so I made sure not to make any movement. The young 10 point puts his head down to start eating and right as he is doing that, the deer I was trying to shoot walks off in the direction all the deer exit to. At this point I'm not happy. "Why isn't this working out?" "He has been in here this long and of course when I decide I want to shoot him he leaves." etc. etc. All of these thoughts rush into my head as I see the best deer I've seen all year walking away from us. He stops and looks around at 35 yards for a few minutes and out pops a spike from behind us (remember the young 10 I thought that was looking at us?) that starts for our hand corn. The stubbornness of "Gnarly 10" kicked in and he had to come over and push everything back off of his corn one more time. After doing this, I guess he just couldn't resist a few more bites to eat but he messed up this time.. He decided to eat broadside of me at 20 yards.
The rush was on, I was pumped up and drew back nice and slow making sure to not make any extreme movements that would trigger anything to be concerned. I get drawn back, ask dad if he's ready to go with the camera and he says yes and reminds me that the deer is broadside and to get the arrow up in the shoulder (It always helps hearing little things like that to calm you down) I settle my 20 yard pin right inside the "Deadly V", take a deep breath, One Mississippi, two Mississippi, and sent an arrow right towards his pump station! SCHWACK!!! The arrow zips through my intended area of entrance and he jumps what looks to be 5 feet straight up in there air and at this apex, his back legs do exactly the kick everyone loves to see!! Smoked him! Dad and I immediately fist bump and we watch and listen. The deer is out of sight within a second or two because of how thick the area we are hunting is but that is when ears become your best friend, within 15 seconds we hear what we think was him crashing but were reassured when we heard the "death kick" that the deer do moments before they expire. We watch the video to make sure the shot was where we thought it was, and immediately are satisfied with what the video showed us. Per Dad's suggestion, we waited 30 minutes just to make sure nothing crazy happened before getting out of the blind and beginning to track Gnarly 10. I sent a few texts to a few people telling them "Buck down" and was ready to go after that! (It had only been 5 minutes
) so we waited 25 more minutes..
Got out of the blind, went to the spot I shot, no arrow, no blood..... I start to panic a little bit but I know I saw the arrow fling out of the exit side when he kicked his back legs. We start looking, no arrow, no blood... full fledged panic at this point. We go back to where I shot and try again, and found a speck of blood roughly 10 yards from where I shot, (little did we know at the time, my arrow was right behind this spot but about 6 feet up in a tree) found a few drops here and there, but not near the amount I was expecting, when dad says, "There he is!" I rush over to him and am in awe of what I was able to accomplish. It finally hits me what just happened and do a quick review of the animal before we went and got our stuff and the Ranger. On our way back to the blind, we found the path he took to where he expired and there was blood EVERYWHERE. We just picked the wrong side of the bush to go around when originally tracking lol.
Welcome to the family, Gnarly 10. I'm very humbled to be able to harvest such a beautiful animal and to be able to do it with family present makes it that much sweeter!
Thank you all and sorry for the long write up!
We got settled in at our "Sunday Morning" stand around 6:00 that morning with the feeder set to go off at 6:40. It was a longer 40 minutes than most and I would be lying if I said that my eyes stayed open the entire time. Approximately 6:15 rolls around and we start to hear the crunching of corn at our chum logs and can start to see the outline of a couple of deer and can only begin to see main beams through the binoculars. Immediately, thoughts start rushing into my mind about what deer these could possibly be. After what seem like the longest 20 minutes of just sitting there listening to these deer vacuum our corn off of our 20 yard chum logs, the feeder finally goes off and amazingly, the deer only pick their head up, watch the feeder throw corn and then put their head right back down and continue eating on our 20 yard logs. A few minutes pass and the tines start to become visible on the bucks that we have in front of us and nothing really seemed all that impressive at the time. A young 10, a spike and what we originally thought was an 8 point ( he had his backside facing us for a good while) all ate in front of us while a few deer made their way into the feeder. At some point the "8 point" turned broadside to us and I noticed that he was indeed a 10 point with meat hooks for brow tines. I instantly knew that this was a deer that we had on camera from before the season that I called the "Gnarly 10" and my blood started pumping.
For those who were wondering why I kept saying we, my dad and I hunt together a lot because we both enjoy the time and experience together and we like to video each other's shots. We typically always hunt this spot together on the last morning because we make it a quick sit and knowing it is a buck only hunt makes it that much sweeter to experience when one of us are able to connect on these final hunts. Anyways, we talk it over for a while to try and determine his age and score to make sure he was a deer we could agree to harvest and ultimately decided that he was one worth taking.
Now the fun began! I grabbed my bow and set it on my knee and clipped my release on! He starts walking around and pushing other 3.5 - 4.5 year old bucks off of his corn. He gets quartered away in one of my shooting lanes but I could not get drawn back because there is another 10 point with his head up looking our way (at the time I thought he was looking at us) so I made sure not to make any movement. The young 10 point puts his head down to start eating and right as he is doing that, the deer I was trying to shoot walks off in the direction all the deer exit to. At this point I'm not happy. "Why isn't this working out?" "He has been in here this long and of course when I decide I want to shoot him he leaves." etc. etc. All of these thoughts rush into my head as I see the best deer I've seen all year walking away from us. He stops and looks around at 35 yards for a few minutes and out pops a spike from behind us (remember the young 10 I thought that was looking at us?) that starts for our hand corn. The stubbornness of "Gnarly 10" kicked in and he had to come over and push everything back off of his corn one more time. After doing this, I guess he just couldn't resist a few more bites to eat but he messed up this time.. He decided to eat broadside of me at 20 yards.
The rush was on, I was pumped up and drew back nice and slow making sure to not make any extreme movements that would trigger anything to be concerned. I get drawn back, ask dad if he's ready to go with the camera and he says yes and reminds me that the deer is broadside and to get the arrow up in the shoulder (It always helps hearing little things like that to calm you down) I settle my 20 yard pin right inside the "Deadly V", take a deep breath, One Mississippi, two Mississippi, and sent an arrow right towards his pump station! SCHWACK!!! The arrow zips through my intended area of entrance and he jumps what looks to be 5 feet straight up in there air and at this apex, his back legs do exactly the kick everyone loves to see!! Smoked him! Dad and I immediately fist bump and we watch and listen. The deer is out of sight within a second or two because of how thick the area we are hunting is but that is when ears become your best friend, within 15 seconds we hear what we think was him crashing but were reassured when we heard the "death kick" that the deer do moments before they expire. We watch the video to make sure the shot was where we thought it was, and immediately are satisfied with what the video showed us. Per Dad's suggestion, we waited 30 minutes just to make sure nothing crazy happened before getting out of the blind and beginning to track Gnarly 10. I sent a few texts to a few people telling them "Buck down" and was ready to go after that! (It had only been 5 minutes
) so we waited 25 more minutes.. Got out of the blind, went to the spot I shot, no arrow, no blood..... I start to panic a little bit but I know I saw the arrow fling out of the exit side when he kicked his back legs. We start looking, no arrow, no blood... full fledged panic at this point. We go back to where I shot and try again, and found a speck of blood roughly 10 yards from where I shot, (little did we know at the time, my arrow was right behind this spot but about 6 feet up in a tree) found a few drops here and there, but not near the amount I was expecting, when dad says, "There he is!" I rush over to him and am in awe of what I was able to accomplish. It finally hits me what just happened and do a quick review of the animal before we went and got our stuff and the Ranger. On our way back to the blind, we found the path he took to where he expired and there was blood EVERYWHERE. We just picked the wrong side of the bush to go around when originally tracking lol.
Welcome to the family, Gnarly 10. I'm very humbled to be able to harvest such a beautiful animal and to be able to do it with family present makes it that much sweeter!
Thank you all and sorry for the long write up!
Attached Files
Comment