I spent more time this spring and summer than all my previous years hunting trying to help improve my hunting (which was never really bad to start out with, if you guys remember posts from my past).
I started running cameras in may (had 3 out) then in late august/september once i planted my food plots I put out 10 cameras to try to get a better idea of whats happening at what time. Since May I have captured over 50,000 photos, over 200 AA batteries. The herd in my area still going strong and healthy I have at least 6 shooter bucks on film and maybe 10 or so other nonlegal or small legal deer (every legal buck isnt a shooter IMO, other may disagree but thats the way i do it), I know some may be been passing through but its hard to know for sure
Do not let anyone tell you food plots are easy to put in, they require alot of work to start from nothing to a good plot, I wont go in to detail but its alot of work in the hottest part of summer.
Anyway, so I been working the summer on my free time to better my stand sites. Fat foward to Friday night before season opener I was doing final prep on my Excalibur Micro Matrix 335. I had my quiver and joking around my wife asked what i was doing. I said I am writing your name on a fletching for good luck, then I wrote my daughters and sons name, could hurt...
Opening day of PA archery, i didnt hunt the morning. From my data the deer were not there. So i waited till afternoon. it was a spitting rain hard east wind kind of day in my area.
I hate getting in to the stand to early and like always i think i was in the stand to early. 4pm i get into my stand. It is tucked into a corner of a field that overlooks a part of a bean field and has a nice cut back that has one of my food plots in it.
4:30 a doe and fawn come out in the bean field at 90 yards, feed for a while go back in the woods
5:15 doe and fawn come out in the food plot and feed a while (possibly th same deer??) 30-35 yards
6:20 2 doe with 2 fawns come in to the food plot at 20 yards, feed for a while then travel into bean field came as close at 10 yards
6:30 doe and 2 fawns come in to the bean field at that 90 yard entry point.
6:55 2 bucks enter at the 90 yard mark
from that distance (and they were half in a brown colored bean field with light fading) i couldnt judge the exact size of the deer but i knew they were both on the hit list based on body size.
Both bucks started my way coming tword my food plot, where i was sitting. 40 yards infront of me was the line where my food plot ended. They got to that enge and started eating. They were facing my direction, no shot. short time later they started walking closer they came to about 15 yards still walking tword me both turned quarting to me and trotted maybe 20-30 yards to get in to a diffent seed mix in this plot.
Once they stopped I still had my eye on the bigger of the two deer, yes both were very legal deer, and I guessed 30 yard shot pulled up let the arrow fly. Luminock glowed orange till I watched it disapear in to the side of the buck.
A loud crack sound came as soon as my nock disapeared and the buck jumped 4 foot verticle, and tucked up his right leg. took off running. Was not a pass through.
I texted my dad to swing by my way once he finishes his hunting, which was not a very long wait, less than 20 minutes.
Everything happened so fast, some how I was getting texts from many of my friends about what i seen and where am i...so i let them know i think i just hit my big 7 point. I said this because to be honest i thought that was the buck i shot. Once i picked out which of the two bucks i was going to take a shot at i stoped looking at the rack. I wasnt going to blow this change by stareing at the partt that would work me up and make a mistake.
My dad arrives at my stand and it dark out. I tell him the story, we look at the stop i hit the deer. With flash lights we found evidence that made me sick, stomach matter... we follow it to the woods where i seen him enter after the shot. mark off the entry point and sai we will find him in the morning.
LOOONG night a head of me, my phone was blowing up, i had to retell the story several time.... but somthing didnt seem right
Nock disapeared where i thought the ribs were, loud crack sound, not a pass through, vertical jump tends to lean on a heart shot....but stomach matter as a trail.
In the morning, we had a family friend help out witht he tracking. In the sun light we still found zero blood. We found nothing in the woods. So we did a last ditch effort we stood about 20 yards apart from each other and walked in the same direction, combing the area to hope to find somthing. We would go maybe 100 yard then go back to the plot and try a different direction he may have went.
After the second attemp of this i was feeling pretty low, but we regrouped and did another search. This time as i walked I looked as far infront of me as i could. I seen what could have been a clump of white color roots at the base of cluster of several small trees. I got excited and yelled "there he is!". Then i thought crap its the roots of those trees, I yelled "never mind" few more steps and I knew what I was looking at. It was the rear end of my buck, so for a third time in 10 seconds I yelled out "NO that is my deer".
I got up the deer to see it was fully intact from its night out. its antlers were stuck strait into the earth and body twisted to that its left side was facing up. The broad head was peaking out right next to the shoulder, with alot of damage. I tagged him, and rolled him over. To find I mis judged how extreme he was quarting away. I did hit him a few inches behind the ribs, but still hit his other sides shoulder. I didnt study the guts to much but i did catch one lung, I kind of wish i would have looked at the heart but i didnt. Also the deer ran maybe 120 yards and fell over dead, after the shot he was gone with in a minute.
When i pulled the broken arrow out, the luminock was still glowing and there on the fletching was the name of my wife, daught and son, i guess it was good luck.
I didnt look to deep in the vitals partly because I was blown away by how i misjudged the deer i shot. I thought it was my 7 point, but it turned out to be a buck i named last year called "Make You Puke" the biggest buck I had on camera this season. I had 100s of photos this year of him, never would i have thought i would see him let alone get a shot and not know it was him.
If your wondering why i called him "make you puke" is because i believe last year this buck came in to our block and he was a 6 point. Not just any 6 point, a 18" wide 6" g2 6 point. I told my friends who hunted there in rifle to watch out because there is a big 6 point that isnt legal, they would ask "how big?" I then told him, it will "Make You Puke" seeing his rack and not being legal.
So from last year to this year I spent 3 hours in the stand and shot two very nice 8 points. Sometime you get lucky
Here is a photo of the deer i thought i shot
Now the buck I shot, little different. Hey i was excited and misjudged. Also it should be noted in the photo below the other "smaller" buck was the buck that came in with him. He was also a regular and I got 100's of pics of him. Those two were buddies all summer
