Post by Sasquatch on Oct 5, 2009 22:15:31 GMT -5
My brother is up visiting from North Carolina, and we have been spending the last few days chasing deer.
Saturday morning found me up a tree in Decatur county. It was a beautiful, if slightly chilly morning. I haven't seen this many birds up close in a long time. Flickers were in abundance, swooping from tree to tree in their peculiar way, calling loudly all the time. Finches and sparrows landed mere feet from my face, singing cheerfully. For a while there I expected Mary Poppins to drift by clutching her trademark umbrella.
I saw roughly a million squirrels, one of which started down my tree and nearly hopped on my head. An old hen paraded her brood past my stand, five in all, nearly as big as her now.
At ten o'clock, I looked down to see a four point buck about ten yards away, on a trail that runs right behind the permanent stand in which I stood. Luckily I was wearing a face mask and leaning, James Dean-like, against one of the large tree trunks, and from the deer's perspective it was behind me, obscuring my outline. He looked right at me, and then turned to nibble at a bush beside him. Then he looked back at me again before turning back to the bush. After about five minutes he leaped over a tangle of briars and landed broadside at twenty yards.
Having decided to take the first available deer, I drew my 64 pound Mathews switchback and placed the 20 yard pin on the buck. I squeezed the trigger and White fletching appeared behind the deer's shoulder, sending him off on a low, high speed run.
After waiting for my brother to arrive, we took up a pretty generous blood trail that ended after only sixty yards. The NAP Scorpion XP broadhead had entered low and just forward of the heart, grazing the leg bone on the way in. It still sank to the fletches and emerged from the other side.
I am thankful for such a quick boost to the larder, as I am keen to spend more time at home this winter with my kids.
Good sign...
Grizz at the end of the trail....
Yee haw!
After a couple of hard days hunting...with me seeing deer every night and Grizz seeing nothing. Tuesday night I saw twelve deer---twelve--- and grizz saw none. Well, Wenesday a friend let us hunt on a piece of property Bill Jordan would lust over, so I was hopeful. Grizz was situated in one permanent stand and I in another some distance away. I was enjoying watching a little gray squirrel collect walnuts when at around 5:30 I heard a loud
double whack from the direction of Grizz. I fervently hoped it was the sound of his crossbow going off, and when I saw a smiling Grizz coming up the lane, my hopes were realized.
A good sized doe with two fawns had come out of the hills and offered a twenty yard shot. As she was slightly quartering towards him, grizz shot her just in front of the leg. The carbon crossbow bolt and 125 grain Slick Trick four blade passed through the shoulder blade, exited the paunch and buried four inches into the dirt beyond the doe. She ran about 70 yards and dropped in a field.
I took the Jeep Cherokee across the new and astonishingly vast REX pipeline right-of-way, then down an uneven path barely big enough for it on down into the bottom. After loading up the doe on the hitch-haul, we climbed back up the trail, butts puckered all the way. Had it not been for four wheel drive, we'd still be down there. In fact, I daresay I would not take a heavier 4x4, such as a full-sized truck down that trail!
Saturday morning found me up a tree in Decatur county. It was a beautiful, if slightly chilly morning. I haven't seen this many birds up close in a long time. Flickers were in abundance, swooping from tree to tree in their peculiar way, calling loudly all the time. Finches and sparrows landed mere feet from my face, singing cheerfully. For a while there I expected Mary Poppins to drift by clutching her trademark umbrella.
I saw roughly a million squirrels, one of which started down my tree and nearly hopped on my head. An old hen paraded her brood past my stand, five in all, nearly as big as her now.
At ten o'clock, I looked down to see a four point buck about ten yards away, on a trail that runs right behind the permanent stand in which I stood. Luckily I was wearing a face mask and leaning, James Dean-like, against one of the large tree trunks, and from the deer's perspective it was behind me, obscuring my outline. He looked right at me, and then turned to nibble at a bush beside him. Then he looked back at me again before turning back to the bush. After about five minutes he leaped over a tangle of briars and landed broadside at twenty yards.
Having decided to take the first available deer, I drew my 64 pound Mathews switchback and placed the 20 yard pin on the buck. I squeezed the trigger and White fletching appeared behind the deer's shoulder, sending him off on a low, high speed run.
After waiting for my brother to arrive, we took up a pretty generous blood trail that ended after only sixty yards. The NAP Scorpion XP broadhead had entered low and just forward of the heart, grazing the leg bone on the way in. It still sank to the fletches and emerged from the other side.
I am thankful for such a quick boost to the larder, as I am keen to spend more time at home this winter with my kids.
Good sign...
Grizz at the end of the trail....
Yee haw!
After a couple of hard days hunting...with me seeing deer every night and Grizz seeing nothing. Tuesday night I saw twelve deer---twelve--- and grizz saw none. Well, Wenesday a friend let us hunt on a piece of property Bill Jordan would lust over, so I was hopeful. Grizz was situated in one permanent stand and I in another some distance away. I was enjoying watching a little gray squirrel collect walnuts when at around 5:30 I heard a loud
double whack from the direction of Grizz. I fervently hoped it was the sound of his crossbow going off, and when I saw a smiling Grizz coming up the lane, my hopes were realized.
A good sized doe with two fawns had come out of the hills and offered a twenty yard shot. As she was slightly quartering towards him, grizz shot her just in front of the leg. The carbon crossbow bolt and 125 grain Slick Trick four blade passed through the shoulder blade, exited the paunch and buried four inches into the dirt beyond the doe. She ran about 70 yards and dropped in a field.
I took the Jeep Cherokee across the new and astonishingly vast REX pipeline right-of-way, then down an uneven path barely big enough for it on down into the bottom. After loading up the doe on the hitch-haul, we climbed back up the trail, butts puckered all the way. Had it not been for four wheel drive, we'd still be down there. In fact, I daresay I would not take a heavier 4x4, such as a full-sized truck down that trail!
