Deer season opens up early around here. Went out opening day and my buddy got a nice doe. Went out with him again this past Saturday for a morning evening hunt. I found a nice tree in this area a few days earlier and wanted to do my sit in it. The main problem was a lot of understory. So when I went in Saturday morning I took a pole pruner with me. I cut and sawed for over an hour and finally was in the tree around 0730. I set until 10 and climbed down and did a little more trimming to clear some lanes of twigs. When it is dark those can be a real problem with arrow flight. Climbed back into the tree around 3 in the afternoon and was happy with most of the lanes I had created. Around 7 that evening I saw movement behind a thick spot. It was a doe and a spike buck, still in velvet. I paid very close attention to them because I didn't want to shoot the spike by accident and use a buck tag inadvertently. They were moving around quite a bit, I think they were eating some of the brush I had just cut, the leaves that were out of reach now on the ground. The doe finally turned broadside and I let the arrow loose. The doe launched back into the thicket and I could see my Illuminoc glowing where she stood. The shot felt good. I waited about 20 minutes but wanted to get down a look while I still had ambient light. Found the arrow quickly. It had blood and some green on it, oh no, potential gut shot. I looked for blood and couldn't find any. So I marked the area and backed out to wait for my buddy with the good color vision. Being color blind sucks.

We go back in about a half hour later with good lights and paper to mark the blood trail. It took about 15 minutes for Matt to find the first blood. They were tiny little drops, probably not even a quarter inch across. At least now we had a vector for her departure. We kept looking and found a tiny drop here and a tiny drop there. We got about 70 yards from where i shot the deer and finally found a good amount of blood. I figured this was where she stopped to check her back trail. I was starting to feel better about the finding her when my friend said he saw her laying on the ground, no more than 10 yards from the splash of blood. I looked at the entrance hole and it was right on the back edge of the left shoulder, perfect. When we rolled her over we saw that the exit wound was from the gut. When I shot, I could of sworn she was perfectly broadside, she must of moved while the arrow was in flight. I fretted over the shot being a little off, but decided a deer on the ground a short distance from impact was still good enough. Things happen fast in the woods. Luckily they went in my favor.

She was a nice deer, weighed around 80 pounds. She looked very healthy too. I guess this warm weather agreed with her. I am going up tonight to break her down into manageable parts. I have her hanging in a walk in cooler, those things are great! I will move her to my refrigerator when I get home. Fresh venison is on the menu, awesome.
Vic

Congratulations Vic. Fresh meat in the freezer. Great way for you and your friend to start the season.


Earl