Story Time!
Man of man, what a rush. This is not only my first bow buck but my first bow deer and first buck ever since I started hunting about 2 seasons ago now. Here's exactly how it all went down.
It started yesterday, for a few hours I was debating not going hunting today due to the weather forecast. I decided that since I had been prepping for this very day, for months, I wasn't going to miss it. This would be my first time hunting before the start of regular season.
At around 4pm I walked into my "spot" to setup my stand, prep work before Saturday's hunt. On the way in I bumped what I thought was a solid 4 point buck. I setup my stand then left. The next day I woke up around 3am, showered, headed out the door by 3:30am. I arrived at my spot around 4am, climbed up my stand and waited.
There was rain, on and off, not as bad as I thought it would be. While I was in my stand, cold and wet, I decided to try and pull back my bow, practice run. I couldn't do it..... my muscles were cold, I was tired. It took me 3-4 tries before I could pull it back. At that point I was extremely nervous. And in that nervousness I realized I am 100% overbowed, 70lbs is not for me. Not only am I overbowed but I increased my draw length by half an inch and ever since the bow randomly jumps forward if I let up on it even just a tad at full draw. No bueno.
7:20am rolls by, I have to go to the bathroom... hell of a chore when you have to get past 3 layers of tight clothing. As I'm about to open the flood pipe I see my shooter buck 15 yrds from me ... Looking back on this, this was a moment I will remember for the rest of my life for so many reasons. My johnson in my hand, buck 15 yrds away from, and my body instantly flooding with adrenaline.
I scramble to get myself decent. After I position my feet, I grab my bow SLOWLY, then freeze. It's crazy how you can be 15yrds away from an animal that is hyper aware of it surroundings and it not see you. I purposely would not look it in the eyes, for some reason I thought this would help me to remain undetected.
His head is down, he's eating acorns in the exact spot I thought he would be. A twig snaps, he turns away from me, ears at the alert in the wrong direction. I pull back my bow, go to aim and the ^&%$ing bow jumps forward.... Thank GOD it was silent. I look at the buck and he goes back to his acorns..... For whatever reason he picks up his head and looks back in the same direction. I pull back once again, all crazy like, full left, because I am clearly overbowed. I put my pin on him. He is hard quartering to me. Only now do I realize this was a stupid, horrible, shot to make. I release my arrow.
I can see the arrow hit him, it looks like it enters high. He does a jump, back legs kick out, he runs about 45yards and then I heard two crashes. I know this sound, I've heard it plenty of times on youtube videos. A crash is almost certainly going to be a death. I pat myself on the back. Within 5 minutes I'm on the ground, I go to retrieve my arrow ..... What I saw next horrified me. The arrows is green, the ground is green, everything smells like stinky a$$. I gut shot the deer.
Now some of you members see me post on here. I have issues with shot placement for some reason. I guess this is the learning curve. All my shots, rifle, shotgun, and bow are always high. Even though my shot placement sucks, I have dropped every deer dead, over the last 2 seasons, with no tracking involved. Pure, dumb, blind, luck.
I pull out my phone, google "gut shot deer with bow". Of course all the results mortify me. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out what to do I fall back on my initial observations. I heard this the drop. With this in mind I decided to at least walk to where I heard the crash and go from there.
I start to creep forward, very very slowly. I attempt to try to swing hard right and approach the spot instead of walking straight to it. After about 2 minutes I can see him. Belly first, no movement, head next, eyes open ... no movement. I get up to him and poke him, nothing.
Despite all my f-ups and just plain amateur decisions lady luck is STILL with me. At this point I was happy but equally upset with myself. Again, for the third time I messed up a shot. Why oh why oh WHY can I not get this right.
I roll him over, entrance wound is by the spine towards the upper half of the torso. Exit wound is on the lower belly. Keep in mind, no blood this entire time, no blood anywhere. I'm almost as excited to gut him as I was to shoot him. I needed to know how a shot this crappy could kill him in less than a minute.
As soon as I punctured the chest cavity ALL excitement left me. This thing exploded, blood and bile came pouring out of the chest cavity, and I mean POURING out, it defied logic. The smell, THE SMELL. Even breathing through my mouth couldn't stop it, the air tasted like some kind of sweet sour rotting death.
I quickly came to put the organ puzzle pieces together. When I hit the spine I must have hit a major artery, I clipped part of the back end of a lung and then flew right through the stomach. I'm assuming he died from the shear shock of the wound, possibly even suffocating as his chest cavity was insanely bloated before I started working on him. All the blood and the bile pooled inside of that cavity.
The broadhead I used was a Grim Reaper White Tail Special. It punched through spine material and shattered 2 ribs. I'm convinced that the huge 3" cut is the ONLY reason I was able to recover this deer.
And well, ya'll know the rest of what happens. Fun quarter mile drag out and off to Quaker Creek, lol.
Since this is my first buck I decided to do a full shoulder mount. I'll be dropping him off on Monday with True-Life Taxidermy. I hear they do some of the best work in NY, hopefully as they charge 850$.
Welp, if you stuck around for that entire story then props to you because you basically when hunting with me this morning
Happy Shooting ya'll, and I can't wait to post again!
