Well done! Will
I was working and around 10:00 started thinking about how with the approaching storm today is the perfect day to be in the woods. So around 11 I threw my stuff in the truck, shot a couple practice arrows and left for one of the swamps I expect to see nice bucks in right after the rut. I take an hour for what should be a 15 minute walk into my stand, quiet and stopping a lot to listen and watch. Nothing moving as I quietly get up the tree, or should I say trees, as there are 7 swamp maples 14" - 24" growing out of a common base - I call it the queens hand, and no I don't know why that stuck in my head.
... to be continued
Finally I ignore the phone and just watch the woods. Around 2 pm I hear a deer approaching. Now mind you, this is typical Zone 11 swamp; briar patches and bushes that weave an impassable web with deer "tunnels" underneath and it all grows about 6' or 8' tall. So you will hear a deer, you will see bushes moving, but you may never see a deer - but this is where the big boys live. So I hear this deer and at about 15 yards I see it and believe it is a doe, not a big one but definitely something I might want to fill a tag with. It takes about 10 minutes to meander into an opening in the brush only to turn and walk straight away. So I figured what the heck and turned the bleat can a few times. Well, it stopped and turned and came straight back in. Head on when it passed that window at 15 yards, but then in its kindness it turned broadside, took a few steps and left a perfect window to its vitals. I picked a spot, ran through my shooting form mantra, released the Montec and followed through. I watched the arrow disappear in its side and the FOB pop-off with the pink Nocturnal glowing brightly. It ran left about 10 yards, then in an arc to the right about 25 yards and piled up. In all it landed maybe 12 yards from where I shot it and I watched it crash not 30 yards from my stand. This picture is what I had to find it in, even though I knew where it was it took a while to get to it.
Propped its head up on a log and took my pictures for bragging rights here and with my friends. Went back to get my gutting implements and tag and found my arrow covered in bright red blood and almost completely buried in the muck. When I came back I noticed those bumps on his head. Quick remorse even more quickly followed by drooling over how yummy this little sucker is going to be! Gutted in about 10 minutes, then took 30 to drag him back to my tree(s) and the beginning of the trail I cut in there over the past few years. Another 40 minutes and he's in the truck and we head off to the local deer check station - because I like the metal tags. They appreciate that I put my tag in a zip-lock so it's not all bloody and I threw a fiver in the tip jar.
Since was around the corner from where the kids get off the bus to play with their friends for a bit I grabbed the girls, but wound up with the entire day care in the bed of my truck - one Mom isn't going to be happy junior got blood on his sneakers, oh well I tried to tell them not to . . .
Then it was off to Halloweening! Here's the girls, and Happy Halloween to all you woodsmen & women!
When I got home with the girls Mom was going to get them into their costumes. I told her I had a lot of cleaning up to do as I was covered in blood. So it's maybe 4:30, I get the deer on the meat pole and hose out her down. I put most of my stuff away - except for what I need to climb a tree behind the house where the deer dig through the leaves for acorns and some sort of mineral they like to lick out of the soil.
On the way over I am trying to be quiet, and I did rake the path to the tree so the leaves weren't able to give me away. I suspect an errant breeze, regardless as I got to my tree I watch two white tails flicking and bouncing away. What the heck, I climb anyway, a little more careful as they didn't seem to run far. Before I could get all situated in the tree our local button buck we call Skippy shows up, and I can hear the other deer on the other side of some bushes. Skippy is safe as I'm out of Z11 antlerless tags and the girls would kill me if I hurt him. But this other deer is the 8 point I saw on the camera from earlier today. He never gave me a clear shot, and to be honest I would like to see how he looks in a year or two, so I never even hoisted my bow up from the ground, just watched them and took some pictures. Then I had to climb down without spooking 2 deer 15 yards away. There is a pine tree between my tree and them, and I went painfully slow and deliberate and they never even looked my way. So here is a picture of Skippy:
