Attached trail-cam photo taken on January 2nd is of my buddy's target buck, but our 4-day statewide muzzleloader season started yesterday so it's unknown if he's still alive at this time...
Congrats, steve!
He ended up running down inside woods edge and popped back out at 80 yards. So close to getting him. 90% sure he is still alive.
Flying out Thursday to hopefully have him walk by.
He disappeared after Halloween week, then showed back up regularly before Christmas.
Should be fun and conditions are perfect this far.
Had a really good one on the go here a few years ago. This season was the second in a row with no pictures or sightings. Pretty sure he must’ve ended up as wolf fuel by now.
He always seems to be in a bad mood and has a “get off my plot” type of attitude. I might change his nickname to “groundhunter “ ;-)
Aside from the buck I photographed from the road on Nov. 7th, this buck pictured is the biggest buck I seen this year and probably for the past couple years... Trail-cam caught him one time in October and again only one time in November's peak rut so I knew my property was not his core area but figured within his home range traveling through likely checking on does... So I'm thinking I gotta be patient, but I never actually saw him but only in 2 trail-cam videos in 2 months... By late December and no shows I figured he got blasted in one of our 2 statewide firearm seasons...
Too my SURPRISE, my trail-cam caught him alone coming to my winter rye patch in the dark early morning of December 30th, then a couple nights later then four nights in a row from January 1st through the 3rd... Each time he was alone but not time constant with his nocturnal feeding but I knew he knew where the rye was and liked it... Each time I stood for him in the evening I passed does but he never showed in daylight, but I knew to be patient and eventually he would show during the day... Then, January night of the 4th a no show... Dang, a muzzleloader probably blasted him or ran him out of the area... That is when I started this thread... Although it was muzzleloader season, and I have 3 different treestands set up for the rye and I wanted to kill him with a bow... Afternoon, Jan 5th armed with only a bow in my blaze orange just after 4PM with a lot of light left, here he comes trailing behind a group of does, I couldn't believe it, he's still alive and moving in the daylight and I chose the right stand!
The wind was claim and good, it was quiet, one of days you could hear a pin drop, so he's on edge, when a bird flutters, he jerks to run... Every time he hears something, he coils to bolt but the does are not on high alert and seem to relax him... I don't think he would have showed in daylight if it wasn't for the does...
He finally offers me a nice broadside shot at about 25 paces and I took it with his front leg forward... My eyesight is aging, and I didn't see the arrow hit, nor hear a crack of bone or rib, but a thud...
I watched him bolt with the does and started slowing down at about a hundred yards while anticipating and hoping for him to topple over any second but he ran out of sight... Now what, weatherman says a big snow coming tomorrow and not sure of the hit... Had a decision to make, what to do with the snow coming, but I at least wanted to see if he toppled over near the last place I seen him... I still think the hit was good so I gave him about a half hour or so trying to find the arrow then picked up the blood trail first seen about 20 yard from impact... Easy to follow at first in the snow.. Good blood, nice deep red blood spraying, no guts but I can't find the arrow... Only a few yards from where I seen him disappear he bedded, and then another bed a few more yards away and then I heard a deer take off ahead in the brush and found a bed there, 3 beds within 50 yards... At that point I realized he's still alive and I unfortunately just pushed him... I'm now hoping for back lungs and liver hit, and wishing I hadn't push him too far before he beds again... Decisions, decisions, the sun is now going down and he's still alive... Not wanting to push him further, I backed out...
Here I sit all night watching the snowfall not able to sleep... So, I typed this up... It's now an hour or so before sunup, and hope for the stamina for this old fat man to pursue in this snow and cold this day... I guess this is now a semi-live hunt on Bowsite...8^)
First two pix I'm gonna attach are from trail-cam video screen shots early morning of December 30th... The other pix are screen shots of him inspecting my ropes about 5 minutes before I arrowed him...
R
Sorry for slow post, have been a little busy...8^)
All the blood was covered with about 3" of snow overnight so I took Elsa with me this day and showed her where the last bed was where I stopped yesterday right at the edge of a big thicket of greenbrier and black berry thorns... This patch of thicket is big, much bigger than a football field... It was once a nice woods that was cut out 7 or 8 years ago now and it's thick with downed treetops and taken over with these brambles...
She put her nose down in the snow and started digging exposing the cold bed... She then wanted to trail into the thicket but after a few yards in, I couldn't continue and she was getting her 25' check cord entangled... I finally got her out so we started looping around the thicket doing a weave in and out every 20 to 30 yards looking in with me glassing with binocs in what I could see while watching her with her nose... We had the right wind (by the way, it was cold and windy) going that direction and she kept checking the wind as if something was in there... So once we got to the end of the big thicket I started around the back to do the same on the other side back the other direction at the edge of a field... As we started to go back on the other side I notice she hung behind and she was shoving her nose in the snow again... As I walked over so see what intrigued her and she started digging again, and exposed another big blood spot... I'm like YAY, he's not in that thicket... I turned around looking through the more open woods and took a few steps and I could see antler sticking up... YAY! I walked probably within 40 or 50 yards of him and didn't see him because he was laying above me on a little flat out of my line of sight... If it hadn't have been for Elsa, I wouldn't have never seen him...
As I got close, I'm like "What the heck", something wasn't right, then I seen coyotes had already gotten to him overnight... I bet he was dead last evening before I got home... He was stiff as a board...
Thanks everybody for the kind words of encouragement, I'm happy...
I'll follow up with more details, I'm beat and sore getting what meat I could out, it was a real workout...8^)
Next, her looking down in the brambles...
It's thick greenbrier and black berry in there, makes great cover, but boy it's so thick, once you get started in ya hit a wall and have to back out, I couldn't get through it.. It was tough just backing out... Notice the buck rub...
Here's the blood spot Elsa dug up that she found at the other end of the bramble thicket...
Next is what I saw after turning around and walking a few steps... Can ya see it...
Third photo, Elsa licking at the entrance hole...
Forth photo, buck was stiff as a board with snow covering head and neck...
What vitals were hit? Broadhead was a Snuffer...
I fell asleep early, of course then waking up in the middle of the night, so I posted these pix...
I'm going back to sleep... To be continued...8^)
Well alls well that ends well!
What is your longbow?
R
The coyotes got on a doe I shot here at home this fall in an hour or so from shot till I went back to track. We had our pup Otto, and he was weird for the last 50 yards. Hesitant, kind of holding back, then I saw the mess. He knew they were there, probably the yotes were in the brush nearby while I was cleaning things up and dressing the deer.
R
Hi Ryan, and thankfully your Dad created the Snuffers, one did the job here...8^) And thank you for Oskar... For those that don't know, Ryan's dog Oskar is the sire of Elsa... I know Oskar is getting up there in age, I hope he is still doing well... "We had our pup Otto"... Didn't know you had a new male, cool...
Ya know, after I spotted the buck down, I got excited and I think Elsa was still at the blood spot behind me so I really hadn't paid attention to her until I reached near the carcass and started praising her as she came to my side... I just reached down and unleased her, and she immediately started sniffing and inspecting the carcass but didn't seem scared nor did she hackle up... The one experience I'm aware she had with a coyote, hackles were up delivering mean barks, but not here... She liked the deer and only took her less than a minute to start pulling on pieces of exposed meat as seen in the photos ... The coyote tracks were almost filled in with snow, much like my tracks were from the day before so it had been hours since it/they were there... I hadn't found it until just after noon and it seems they found it much earlier... The whole time tracking I hadn't seen one single fresh coyote track in the search and hadn't started snowing here again until around 3AM that morning, which reminds me while we were working the search grid I'm thinking to myself, if we can't find this buck, I'm coming back in a couple days to see if the coyotes found him...
The bow is reflex/deflex custom Chaparral Kaibab... The bowyer who crafted it has since passed...
The Snuffer was well used and ground on a few times, I think I killed a couple other deer with it and a shame I lost it this time, my lucky broadhead...8^) I'll go back and try to find it later without snow, but it's probably in the thicket and I'm not going back in there...8^)
Yeah, I agree the arrow probably caught the back of one or both lower lungs, and would explain the thump sound rather than the crack of ribs and how he made it so far... I thought I'd seen where it hit and looked good at the time, but as said, my eyes fail me now days...8^) He looked straight broadside too me when I shot, I was surprised when I flipped him over and seen the exit hole... I'm thinking he started his spin from string jump being the reason, because I know he wasn't quartered towards me...
It was cold and the wind made it worse and my hands wet with blood, I just wanted to get the salvageable meat and get going so I did the gutless method and didn't open the chess cavity to dissect the wound channel... I wish I had now...
Lewis - This was my first experience with coyotes on my kill, but I flipped the buck over and I salvage as much meat as my pack could carry... I also cut the feet off to store in the freezer for training of Elsa and her pup...
