Trad Gang Highlights > Highlights 2003

First Trad Deer!

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FLHunter:
It had been about nine months since I made a decision to start shooting traditional seriously. I had shot a bit of stick and string as a kid, and would stump shoot at times with my son in the yard, but really didn't persue the stick and string.

This is my first traditional deer, and its a nice one for hunting in South Florida.

Second weekend of our bowhunting season September 27th in the central management area of Florida. I decided to switch to hunting with my Massie M Series recurve for the rest of the season.

The first weekend of season I got lucky and killed an nice eight point with my compound. I was hunting for freezer meat. At that point my son FLGATOR informed me that it was time to graduate to trad for remainder of the season. He was right as he often is.  :)  

I knew there was another 8 point in the camp area of the lease. I setup my stand about 50yds away from a feeder on a game trail paralleling the edge of a hammock next to a pond. I very seldom hunt feeders, but the trails coming and going, and the areas around them. Usually all I see coming a feeder is mostly small bucks, yearlings, and a occasionally good sized doe. The hammock consists of mostly cabbage palms and live oaks.

Friday evenings hunt I saw a cowhorn spike passing through the area, nothing else.

Saturday morning I got into my stand a little late after guiding a couple of guests to their stands another father/son team. I had just got settled into the stand about 20feet up in a cabbage palm. At 6:00AM the feeder goes off for two seconds. I saw some does in the area, but nothing near the feeder some 50yds away.

At about 7:45AM I see a buck coming in from my left who is walking fairly fast. I had setup a Pee Willie Wick with some Doe in Heat scent up hanging over the trail just about possible head height. The buck proceeds to walk directly under the scent and continues to walk. At about 20 degrees of quartering away I drew the recurve, anchored, followed the deer in his stride, and released. The shot was at 15yds, I never saw the arrow, just a blur as the deer exited out to my right into the pond area just outside the hammock. I heard the buck splashing as it ran in the water for about 4-5 seconds then nothing. I looked for my arrow and couldn't see it. I figured it must be with the deer. Finally I see my camo'd arrow lying broken about 20 feet from where the shot occurred minus the fletching. The deer had snapped it off against a tree leaving. I got down out of the tree and took time stow my gear in the stand. After about 30 minutes I started tracking. I found a little blood, but just enough to give me the direction of travel. The arrowshaft didn't have any blood on it because it landed in a large puddle. The blood I found was bright red and somewhat splattered on the vegetation and the amount of blood was sparse. It took me about 15 minutes to find the deer. The arrow entered the deer high above the right shoulder and back a bit. It had passed through the deer exiting in the left shoulder blade just about the elbow. The shot had hit one lung, cut off the aorta, and the major vein to the heart. The blood trail was sparse with the end of the arrow remaining in the animal plugging the exit wound.

I found the deer lying on piece of high ground with the left antler hooked on a 1/2" diameter vine.

I didn't realize the deer was a large as he was, in this case no ground shrinkage. This was not the deer that I was hunting.

It was a nine point with a 14 5/8" spread, very symethrical weighing about 150#. Very nice deer for So. Florida, I got lucky again.

The setup is a Massie M series static recurve, ICS 400 Camo Hunter arrow, w/ Magnus Stinger 100 grain two blade broadhead.

 

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