Arrived last Friday in time for the hunt. Made it to the stand, grabbed the memory card from the trail cam and crawled up the tripod. Unfortunately, that's about all the action I had that evening...
Once back at camp, was anxious to see what was on the tc pics. Was pleasantly surprised to see an axis eating on a regular basis. He was only present late at night and in the mornings. Hit the rack that night thinking tomorrow could be the day...
Got up early and in my stand about an hour before sunrise. Wanted to make sure if he was bedded anywhere near I wouldn't spook him too much by getting their late. About 10 minutes after the feeder went off I had two whitetail bucks come in. They appeared to be pretty calm but were definitely looking back at something. About 20 minutes later, they both stopped eating, turned to the North and stared intently at the Axis buck making his way to the feeder.
Believe me, I was prepared. Camera was setup in the perfect direction, bow was in hand, release was on and the confidence of making a good shot was high. I let him settle in for about 5 minutes and waited for a good opening. He gave me a quartering away shot, maybe a little more than I wanted but a good shot none the less. Drew back and let the arrow fly; here is where my troubles started. The first thing I did wrong is not account for the wind, the second thing was not realizing that my quartering away shot was a little more than I thought, and the third thing (which is where I'm still kicking myself) is that I peeked when I let the arrow go which made me push it to the right. All three things equaled a very poor shot that went in front of the back leg and center punch the other side.
Immediately looked at the video to see how bad. New it was a gut shot, hoping for a little liver on the way out. As he went about 60 yards, I could see him bed down. I watched him for 3+ hours that morning, making sure I followed his every movement. About 11:30 I decided to get back to camp and come back later. Snuck in about 3:30, still laying there with head held high, definitely knew I had not touched the liver. Got out of there and came back about 8:00. As I looked over the ridge to where he was bedded, I was upset to see that he was no longer there. Now my already bad day was getting worse. Fortunately for me, my bad day turned into a great day in less than a minute. There he was about 5 yards from where I had last spotted him, laying on his side with his head down. The plan and day had finally come to a finale...
All though we were all up until about 1:00am getting him out and into the cooler, I could not of been more awake. He was a great deer and I was proud to have recovered him. I stayed awake until about 3:00am that night going over all the things that transpired the previous day and came up with one big factor... PATIENCE!!! If it wasn't for Mitch, Michael, Bruce and all the great people on TBH helping me control my patience, I have no doubt I would of done something stupid and pushed the deer beyond retrieval.
Thanks to all the followed me that day and helped me make all the right decisions. That was the first time I had to deal with something like that, glad to have a group supporting me, THANK YOU!!!
Once back at camp, was anxious to see what was on the tc pics. Was pleasantly surprised to see an axis eating on a regular basis. He was only present late at night and in the mornings. Hit the rack that night thinking tomorrow could be the day...
Got up early and in my stand about an hour before sunrise. Wanted to make sure if he was bedded anywhere near I wouldn't spook him too much by getting their late. About 10 minutes after the feeder went off I had two whitetail bucks come in. They appeared to be pretty calm but were definitely looking back at something. About 20 minutes later, they both stopped eating, turned to the North and stared intently at the Axis buck making his way to the feeder.
Believe me, I was prepared. Camera was setup in the perfect direction, bow was in hand, release was on and the confidence of making a good shot was high. I let him settle in for about 5 minutes and waited for a good opening. He gave me a quartering away shot, maybe a little more than I wanted but a good shot none the less. Drew back and let the arrow fly; here is where my troubles started. The first thing I did wrong is not account for the wind, the second thing was not realizing that my quartering away shot was a little more than I thought, and the third thing (which is where I'm still kicking myself) is that I peeked when I let the arrow go which made me push it to the right. All three things equaled a very poor shot that went in front of the back leg and center punch the other side.
Immediately looked at the video to see how bad. New it was a gut shot, hoping for a little liver on the way out. As he went about 60 yards, I could see him bed down. I watched him for 3+ hours that morning, making sure I followed his every movement. About 11:30 I decided to get back to camp and come back later. Snuck in about 3:30, still laying there with head held high, definitely knew I had not touched the liver. Got out of there and came back about 8:00. As I looked over the ridge to where he was bedded, I was upset to see that he was no longer there. Now my already bad day was getting worse. Fortunately for me, my bad day turned into a great day in less than a minute. There he was about 5 yards from where I had last spotted him, laying on his side with his head down. The plan and day had finally come to a finale...
All though we were all up until about 1:00am getting him out and into the cooler, I could not of been more awake. He was a great deer and I was proud to have recovered him. I stayed awake until about 3:00am that night going over all the things that transpired the previous day and came up with one big factor... PATIENCE!!! If it wasn't for Mitch, Michael, Bruce and all the great people on TBH helping me control my patience, I have no doubt I would of done something stupid and pushed the deer beyond retrieval.
Thanks to all the followed me that day and helped me make all the right decisions. That was the first time I had to deal with something like that, glad to have a group supporting me, THANK YOU!!!
Attached Files
Oh yeah, Sean forgot to mention he has a Hernia so he can not lift anything Heavy, so me and Michael were on drag and lift partrol..... 
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