It was raining on our way in today. I sat in the woods for an hour before daylight. When it finally got light, the rain tapered off. Right after it got light, I saw a doe come across the creek. About a half hour later, I saw a giant, but I couldn’t get a shot at him. He meandered up the hill and disappeared, but it was an awesome sight to see. It was the big buck that we have on trail camera.
Later in the day, Shawn was able to get a lot of pictures of him when he walked by the place where he and Brian were sitting.
Around 9 o’clock, a doe ran off from the hill in front of me. When I looked closer, I could see a giant buck following her. They both stopped at a bowl in front of me to feed. After feeding for a bit, the doe headed toward me, but the buck stayed back and continued feeding. When the doe got to the right of my stand, I saw the buck coming quickly. He was heading right toward her and grunted as he got closer.
When she saw him, she bolted toward the creek. I tried stopping him with a few loud grunts from my voice, but he never heard them. I tried following him with the pin to get a shot, but nothing was available. I finally squeezed the trigger, but the shot hit way low and back. It wasn’t a lethal hit, and the arrow only shaved some white hair of from him and got a bunch of fat on it.
When I was on the ground looking for the arrow, which I quickly found, I saw a shooter 10-pointer on the ridge above me. After confirming that the deer I shot at was okay, I got back in the stand. A few hours later, I saw another great buck in the scrape on the runway halfway up the hill. He didn’t stay very long and headed down the ridge.
The rest of the day was pretty slow until right before dark. Two fawns raced down the ridge in front of me. They didn’t have their mother in tow, so I was well aware that bucks were chasing.
A few minutes after they passed by me, I saw a doe and fawn come down the ridge. A small 4-pointer was following close behind them. They milled around in front of my stand as it was getting dark. When they finally disappeared, I got ready to get out of the stand. Right when I got ready to tie my bow, I spotted the same giant deer that I had seen in the early morning hours, and he was on the same exact runway but going in the opposite direction.
Although it was fairly dark, I decided to give it a whirl. I ranged a tree for 43 yards and the deer for 37 yards. I settled the 40-yard pin on the deer and squeezed the shot off. It sounded like it buried itself in the mud as the deer bolted and ran up the hill.
After getting out of the tree and going to the runway he was standing on, I ranged the tree stand, and it was 48 yards away. I’m assuming the arrow went well below the deer. I’m going back in the morning to see if I can find the arrow. Although I’m 95% sure I didn’t hit it, I will try to find the arrow to confirm my assumption.
We will see what tomorrow brings. I can’t imagine it being anything close to what today gave us.