buckeye wrote:2011 Public Land Buck
Friday, October 21st 2011 was just one of those magical feeling days of Autumn. We were at the tail end of a cold front with overcast skies and moderate winds from the SW. I knew the weather could not have been any more perfectly suited for big buck movement. My experiences over the years have taught me that the third week of October in my area to setup on traditional scrape areas and acorns that lie near preferred bedding areas. I had just the place in mind with a good bed I found the past winter, this would be my first setup on this bed. This bed was just above a hill side with a handful of big oak trees and scrapes. The buck would have to travel SouthEast from his bed to drop down to the oaks and scrapes.
My hunt did not exactly start as planned though as I was busted by a doe and fawn as I was pulling my bow up to my Assault. The wind was blowing hard enough to mask their sound, I never heard them until it was to late. As bad as it is to get busted by any deer... I knew it was a good sign that deer were on their feet three hours before dark.
There is no point in showing the Topo as it's is all blacked out like the Topo in the post above due to being reclaimed strip mines.
Hardly an hour had passed and I could see a deer briskly moving my direction. A brief flash of antlers through the foliage confirmed it was a buck. I grabbed my bow and readied for a shot in case it was a good buck, and a good buck he was. I could see mass and lot's of it. At this point I was very thankful for the compact 30" axle to axle length of my bow, as the buck stopped just two yards from the base of my tree. I drew back, quickly settled in and off I sent the arrow toward him. I could see the impact and hear the loud crack of the arrow meeting it's target, the buck whirled around and ran back the same way he came. I was 100% confident in my shot placement, although I could see I did not get a complete passthrough. I could tell the broadhead punched an exit hole from the blood trail though.
I lowered my bow to the ground, then took down and packed up my Assault and sticks to help pass time before I went onto the blood trail. Off I went and it was easy to follow... Blood everywhere, I also found the back half of my arrow on the trail. Then I could see him across the ravine. I abandoned the rest of the blood trail and made a bee line to the buck. Once there I made a discovery, the other half of my arrow! The slightly quartering to shot took out both lungs. The arrow entered a few inches below the spine and exited the sternum.
This photo was back in the truck in my dragging clothes.
Please help me think through this. In my short Beast career and still trying to learn many new things, I would have never thought to hunt this area on a southerly wind. It seems that the buck would bed on this point with a more northerly wind. What am I missing? Can you explain?