Friday 11/9/2012

I went back to the funnel this morning. Something keeps drawing me there. It’s almost as if an inner feeling is guiding me there. If I had an entire season to hunt this area I’m sure I could put a really good buck on the ground in this general vicinity.

It was a really nice morning to sit but it warmed up quickly. I saw one male and one female  fawn as well as a small 4-pointer. It was interesting to see the two fawns together without their mother. I almost have to assume that the mother is being hounded by rutting bucks which in turn leaves fawns alone this time of year. However, from what I’ve seen I don’t have any reason to think that’s the case. Not being a wildlife biologist or researcher of deer I don’t have a clue what’s going on and can only give a hypothetical guess.

This evening Bob and I decided to go after Freak Nasty or Turkey Foot as Matt and Bobby call him. Shortly after setting up my stand I spotted him through the woods and cruising the next field over from me in search of a does. After observing him for a little while I slowly turned back around toward the field full of clover where I was sitting. When I turned I couldn’t believe the size of the buck I saw coming at me across the field. He was a little way behind a doe and feeding ever so slowly. I could see Bob in the tree a little ways from where the buck was feeding.

I quickly took my camera out and started video taping him as he navigated around the field.  As I watched him I could tell he was getting closer to Bob but couldn’t tell if he was in shooting range. Since he was headed directly toward me I decided I should cut my video footage short and stick the camera back in my pocket.

Just before I clicked the camera off I heard Bob’s bow go off and watched the deer bolt and run for the timber on my side of the field. I didn’t have any problems spotting a glowing Illuminock sticking out of the deer’s midsection toward the hind quarter. Since that’s all I could see I didn’t pass any judgment on what had just transpired. Instead, I put my bow in the holster and readied it in case any deer came by me after all of the commotion that had just taken place. Sure enough, within seconds, I could hear a deer coming and after a quick look I knew it was the same deer that Bob had just hit. From my observations I didn’t see where the deer looked too terribly hurt. He was nibbling on some brush and moving toward me slowly.

He wasn’t in any hurry to get anyplace, so I waited patiently. As one minute led into the next I waited with great anticipation for the buck to come within shooting range. He finally got to a place in the woods where he had to make a choice whether to go left or right I was hoping he would go right. If he turned right I knew it would put him directly in front of me at about 10 yards.

Instead, he chose to go left and down the hill. When he stepped in the hole about 35 yards I settled the pin behind his front shoulder and the arrow was on the way. Although I knew it was a little too brushy I took the shot because I knew the buck was already wounded. When the arrow ricocheted off some brush and sailed over his back i was ticked off. I knew it wasn’t a great shot, but figured it was one I should have made none the less. As the deer ran down the hill and back up the other side he still didn’t appear to be too terribly hurt.

When we got back to the house we examined the video I had taken. I have all of it on video, even the shot. Originally we thought Bob had made a poor shot, but after examining the video it’s quite clear that he made a good shot, but the deer moved so much after the bow went off that it affected the impact point by a considerable margin. The moral of the story is don’t always assume someone made a bad shot if the arrow isn’t anywhere near where it’s supposed to be. Video doesn’t lie and the one I have tells me more than I wanted to know. I’ll definitely store away a lot of what I learned from it.

I saw six bucks tonight and some does. We’re going to track the buck in the morning an see what happens. After observing him I’m quite confident he’s okay. Tomorrow morning will be my last sit in Illinois for the year. I’ll be sad to leave it behind but excited to head to Kansas.

Here are a couple of videos of the night. The big deer is the one Bob hit and the other one is one that came in a few minutes after all of the action passed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB8cizZvzro&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpCMVkprhfo&feature=plcp

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