Post by Woody Williams on Nov 9, 2015 16:34:42 GMT -5
My morning….
I was hunting Happy Stand 2 .. This is the same stand I’d been seeing does right and left out of, but up until this morning only seen one buck - a spike buck. Over the years we’ve killed a bunch of deer out of this little valley and it really seems to pick up at pre-rut and rut.
At 7:00 CST I saw a doe cross the valley down below me. I pulled out The Can call and tried to get her to come my way. No dice.. I then saw movement on the little ridge where she had come from. I picked out a decent set of antlers and made a decision to shoot him if he got close enough. He hit a run that a couple does had used a few days before and started down it. I had ranged a tree close to it at 35 yards, so I was going to split the 30 and 40 crosshairs. I eased around to get ready and he must have caught my movement as he was slightly up hill and if I drew a parallel line from the stand to him he would have been only about 8 feet below me. So he saw me, but didn’t know what I was.. When he stopped he was in the open so I put the scope on him and fired. I heard a loud crack and he turned, tucked his tail and took off…but he did not do a hard run.
I waited the prescribed 30 minutes and got down. There was blood the entire length of my arrow with some lighter colored hair, but not white. That was good. I texted Woodmaster and he was home so he said he would come right up. I ranged from the run to the stand tree and it was 38.5 yards. A little further than I though but the Horton Storm shoots 370 FPS so the hit would not be too low. I tracked the deer for about 30 yards and the blood looked pretty good.
When Woodmaster and Chris Stallion got there we went in to track. I had not picked up the blood to examine it, but had just trailed. Woodmaster picked up a leaf that had a lot of blood on it, but also had some foreign matter in it. Oh, guts maybe? We smelled the blood and it did have a gutty odor to it. Time to back out…(dead deer now, still dead in 4 hours) but I had seen a rain forecast earlier. Woodmaster said there was no rain coming. I thought that they must have changed it..
We planned to meet back at the hunting spot at 1:00 Pm. CST. I was halfway home when I thought they surely didn’t change it from 4 am when I checked it last. I checked again at it said 75% chance at noon. I called Woodmaster and said we need to start earlier, so we made it noon. I watched the radar all morning and when I was sitting out on my deck a few rain drops hit. Not long after that Woodmaster called and said lets go back up now. So we went back up there at 11:30. We picked up the blood trail and it was one of those walk as fast as you wanted to blood trails. The deer made a turn and was headed for the stripper pit spoil banks. He just barely got across the rock road that we drive in and out on and fell over. When we left this morning to come back later if we had looked left instead of scanning the pines south we would have seen him from the road.
Total trail was about 125 yards..
He actually has 6 points on one side and 4 with a sticker on the other side..
I’m happy!
NAP Spitfire entrance hole…
.
I was hunting Happy Stand 2 .. This is the same stand I’d been seeing does right and left out of, but up until this morning only seen one buck - a spike buck. Over the years we’ve killed a bunch of deer out of this little valley and it really seems to pick up at pre-rut and rut.
At 7:00 CST I saw a doe cross the valley down below me. I pulled out The Can call and tried to get her to come my way. No dice.. I then saw movement on the little ridge where she had come from. I picked out a decent set of antlers and made a decision to shoot him if he got close enough. He hit a run that a couple does had used a few days before and started down it. I had ranged a tree close to it at 35 yards, so I was going to split the 30 and 40 crosshairs. I eased around to get ready and he must have caught my movement as he was slightly up hill and if I drew a parallel line from the stand to him he would have been only about 8 feet below me. So he saw me, but didn’t know what I was.. When he stopped he was in the open so I put the scope on him and fired. I heard a loud crack and he turned, tucked his tail and took off…but he did not do a hard run.
I waited the prescribed 30 minutes and got down. There was blood the entire length of my arrow with some lighter colored hair, but not white. That was good. I texted Woodmaster and he was home so he said he would come right up. I ranged from the run to the stand tree and it was 38.5 yards. A little further than I though but the Horton Storm shoots 370 FPS so the hit would not be too low. I tracked the deer for about 30 yards and the blood looked pretty good.
When Woodmaster and Chris Stallion got there we went in to track. I had not picked up the blood to examine it, but had just trailed. Woodmaster picked up a leaf that had a lot of blood on it, but also had some foreign matter in it. Oh, guts maybe? We smelled the blood and it did have a gutty odor to it. Time to back out…(dead deer now, still dead in 4 hours) but I had seen a rain forecast earlier. Woodmaster said there was no rain coming. I thought that they must have changed it..
We planned to meet back at the hunting spot at 1:00 Pm. CST. I was halfway home when I thought they surely didn’t change it from 4 am when I checked it last. I checked again at it said 75% chance at noon. I called Woodmaster and said we need to start earlier, so we made it noon. I watched the radar all morning and when I was sitting out on my deck a few rain drops hit. Not long after that Woodmaster called and said lets go back up now. So we went back up there at 11:30. We picked up the blood trail and it was one of those walk as fast as you wanted to blood trails. The deer made a turn and was headed for the stripper pit spoil banks. He just barely got across the rock road that we drive in and out on and fell over. When we left this morning to come back later if we had looked left instead of scanning the pines south we would have seen him from the road.
Total trail was about 125 yards..
He actually has 6 points on one side and 4 with a sticker on the other side..
I’m happy!
NAP Spitfire entrance hole…
.
...... WTG Woody..... You inspire many in many ways!!
