Friday, October 30, 2009

Another Big Boy Down

Went hunting Wednesday night .

It was a perfect evening, calm winds out of the northeast with 40 degree temperatures. As soon as I got settled in my stand, I had this gut feeling in the pit of my stomach. I said to myself, "this is gonna be the night I see another big one."


I began grunting in the direction of the corn field to my north about 5:45 p.m. At about 5:50, I saw movement at the end of the clearing by the corn. I raised my binoculars to see another decent eight pointer crossing the clearing. I grunted again. He looked, but kept on moving to the east. It was now or never, I usually don't use the snort wheeze but this was a huge buck. I let a snort wheeze go and to my surprise this big guy spun around and started heading my way. He made it to the edge of the clearing and looked to the west. Oh no! There was a doe standing to the west of me that I never saw. "Don't go that way big boy keep coming," I said to myself. As expected, he started to turn and headed toward the doe. I grunted two more times. He looked my way, looked back at the doe, and turned again toward my stand. The closer he came, the more my heart raced. This deer's body was huge. So huge, in fact, it made the rack look small. He finally moved to 30 yards and stopped to look at the doe again. He was quartering away slightly with his head turned away. I drew my bow, aimed behind the front shoulder, and "Thwack." Good hit, but not a pass through. As the arrow slammed into the buck, I heard a gasp of air like someone had punched him in the solar plexes. I knew the sound - diaphragm hit. He bolted about 150 yds straight away from me. He ran to the tree line and stopped. As he started to walk again, I lost him in the downed tops from the logger. I thought I heard a crash, but wasn't sure.


I called my wife to let her know I hit another one. She proceeded to call babysitters and was on her way.


We left him for about an hour and a half. When we started tracking, the blood trail was dismal. It actually ended after about 50 yards. I had my wife stand at the last blood spot while I started to follow the path I had seen him take to the timber. "There is one more spot," I called. I kept plugging on got to the timber edge and began scanning with the spot light. "There he is," I yelled to my wife. I walked up grabbed a handful of antler and tried to pull him from the brush. I could hardly budge him. We finally got him out about 9:05 p.m. I had shot him at 6:15pm. What an array of emotions, and all were worth it. What a season! Two Big 8 pointers both with a bow.

9 comments:

  1. Great job on that hunt.. what an old warrior.. way to go!!!! Hawk

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  2. Thanks Hawk. And by the way who are you calling old?

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  3. Great buck...and great story. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Cool story and what a nice looking buck. Do you have any idea how much he weighed? Wait did you say your wife came out & helped? My wife would laugh at me if I called her out to the woods.

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  5. Ben he weighed 182 lbs. And actually I shot this guy out of my wifes treestand, she bowhunts also.

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  6. fantastic story - glad you are having a great season - hope it continues (if you have more tags)

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