I've been doing some "remembering" about some of my favorite hunts and right near the top of the list was a big doe I shot in northern Michigan awhile ago.
Michigan is a hard hunted state and the deer are beyond paranoid schizophrenic! It was an Oct evening hunt, absolutely no wind, you could hear a mouse fart from 100 yds. This big doe came in, she knew something was up and was looking for me for over 30 minutes. I tried drawing back on her at least 5 times but it was so quiet it sounded like I was playing a fiddle and she'd turn to face me every time. I'd hold, hoping she'd turn but when she did it was always too fast for a shot. I literally could audibly hear my heart pounding! I don't know why she stayed around, she was just bound and determined to find me and kept circling the tree. Finally, she slipped up and stayed broadside for a few seconds too long and I was able to make a good shot. I was totally emotionally and physically drained...it was so awesome!
2011 season rolls around and I move a stand on the edge of where I thought her bedding area was and in a red oak bottom. The acorns were thick that year too. First morning I get in early and by 8 am, I see feet coming my way under the still green canopy. Here they come, one by one... three does. The old gray face doe picking up the rear. Finally, after 15 minutes of those sharp eyed gals all around me, she offers me a shot! Ten yards, heart shot... dead in seconds.
That doe was as satisfying as any buck I've shot and killed.
Turns out my little bro had seen them on a trail over by him that was going to take them in the opposite direction, so he started snarling and growling and spitting like a cat...They spooked out into the corn and then came in on a line right underneath me. I don't have any photos on this device, but she was a nice fat 2 yr old doe. Definitely a special hunt for being my first deer and an assist from my bro...
Still remember mine so well! I was shaking like a dog sh!++!ng razor blades! Lol
Back in the early 70's, while bow hunting in the Minnesota, Camp Ripley Military Reserve, I was wearing my dad's old brown canvas duck hunting jacket, using his Shakespeare Recurve, with Bear 2 blade broad heads. I found a big ol pine tree with limbs that went clear to the ground, climbed and stood on a branch about 15 feet up.
A nice fat one horned spike came along at about 30 yards. When I let the string go, it hit my sleeve with a loud slap, the deer jerked it's head up and "wack" the arrow hit it right behind the ear, down it went. When I gutted it out it had the plumbing of a doe with a full milk sack.
In Ripley all deer have to be checked out prior to leaving. I'll never forget (I was 17 or 18 at the time) an older guy in his mid 40's, at the check out station, looking at my deer and commenting about where I hit it. With a smug look and a glimmer in my eye I told him that's where I like to shoot all my deer so I don't have to track them. His comment was "yeah right kid" - we both laughed.
The biologist checking it out said that he sees a doe with antlers about once every 3 years.
Lee
We had an old matriarch that would enter the food plot the same way everytime. She would jump the fence, switch to the opposite side from the stand. She would proceed to stare at the stand position and blow. Every single time. She just went to the top of our "hit list".
We arrived around 5 am, grabbed a couple hrs sleep and I headed to the plot around 930 to move the stand. I moved it to the exact location where she would stand, giving the shooter a 10 yrd shot.
We get ready for the evening hunt, my son heads to the plot and I head to another part of the farm. I no sooner get settled and get a text...."Brown Down". I let him know I'm on the way.
When I get there he is grinning huge and says..."she will not blow out the plot anymore". I ask him how he know's it's her. He says, "she jumped the fence, stood 10 yrds in front of me staring at where the other stand was.
The biggest doe we have taken off the farm to date. Pic is of my son and my father.
James
Man, that's a little bit harsh, wouldn't you say? I'm guessing things are somewhat tense around the homestead.
I had to pull that trick once. Had a big doe come down a 2 track and bust me. She was old and had a head on her like a mule! The next day I moved the stand to the other side of the 2 track. That evening, here she came again.... just staring at the tree I had been in.... until I sent a Muzzy to feasting on a lung sandwich!
