My first archery buck! (leason learned)

August 25, 2007 (Saturday Evening)

My brother and I were hunting in the central unit of Utah, all we had been seeing was does and a few small two points, nothing to get the old blood pumping. It was getting late (about 8pm) when I stepped out of this pine/quakie pocket to overlook an opening below me.

All of a sudden from across this small canyon that I was standing in a deer came running/trotting towards me. It was late enough that I could not see real well but he was coming to me fast, so I got ready anyways just in case.

When he was about 50 yards from me I could see that it was a buck and that it was a decent buck not the typical two points and spike that I had been seeing. He got to about 25 yards and slowed to a walk. At 20 yards he turned completely broadside and stopped, I could then see that he was a 4pt. The problem is that he was looking right at me. So I wait. He then turned his head and looked back from where he had just come. That was all I needed I drew back placed my 20 pin on his vitals and released. That buck did not even know I was there, but the arrow zipped throw so fast. It looked like a good hit, not a perfect hit but a good hit.

I immediately called to my brother and told him that I had hit a 4pt. We sat for a minute to let the adrenaline calm down. Then began to look for the arrow and blood, it was pretty much dark now. We were unable to locate blood or the arrow in an hour and a half of searching, so we left for the night and made plans to return in the morning to continue the search.

August 26, 2007 (Sunday morning)

My dad and I searched and searched for 5+ hours Sunday morning and all that we able to find was 3 little dropes of blood, about the size of a pencil eraser. Not good, not good at all. We had to leave the mountain with so many questions unanswered. I hoped that he would make it, but I really thought that I had hit him fairly good.

I figured that I would return in a couple of days and look for birds or try to smell it out, in case he did die. By that way I still had not found my arrow, and I was pretty sure that it was a complete pass thru.


August 30, 2007 (Thursday Evening)

I grabbed a buddy and went up to look again for my buck, to make a long story short, after about one and a half hours of looking I finally got a whiff of something quite pungent to the nostrils, it wasn’t cows or sheep it was defiantly something dead. I then went in to blood hound mode, back and forth thru the breeze, when finally the stench was so awful that I new what ever was dead was just in front of me. Sure enough pilled deep in some buck brush there was the hind leg of a dead deer, on closer inspection my deer. Stinking the whole area up and crawling with little white critters. I will just say this; it is amazing how fast they were cleaning up that carcass. Well I finally had done it; I had taken a decent buck with my bow. And what a relief to finally find it, to bad that the meat went to waste but I have the head, and will always remember my first archery buck.

I persevered and kept looking and it payed off. I figured I had hit him good I just never new how good, and the carcass was pretty well picked on so I will never now for sure. I still have not found that arrow.

By the way he only went about 150-200 yards from were I hit him, and the morning that we searched for 5+ hours for him, I had walked with in 10 yards of him on the uphill side and the downhill side a couple of times and never saw him.

Sorry about the long story, but I thought some of you might like to hear it.
Now you can enjoy the pics.