Thursday am was perfect to hunt a stand on the very top of the highest ridge on my farm. So at 5.30 am i left the trailer in my underwear shirt and hunting trousers and every thing else in my pack on my back. After a 45 minute climb I was on the ridge top . I got dressed , climbed and made my self comfortable . This ridge top is a great bedding area and usually shows lots of rut sign. When the wind is from the west or North West it is a perfect place to sit. the stand is fifteen feet up in a shagbark hickory & over looks the trail on the very spine of the ridge. So with the wind in my face, and a steep downward slope behind me Any deer walking the ridge top would pass right in front of me. One hour had passed and I glanced over my right shoulder to the north to see this great 8 point closing in on me. He stopped at 8 yards and glanced up but never made me. He took 2 steps and as his head disappeared behind a small tree i drew, anchored and released. The shaft buried up to the yellow feathers. He spun to the right and I could see the stealforce head sticking out of his right side. He blew over the opposite side of the ridge and was gone!
I waited 10 minutes before giving three yahoos and then headed out of the tree and back to the trailer.I went down the ridge the way I came up which was the opposite one he ran down. My wife and I made some coffee and waited 2 hours before returning to gather him up.
We clawed our way to the top. i was looking forward to an easy tracking job. We found blood immediately and along with his skid marks in the forest litter followed his trail for 100 yards down the steep slope. Then the blood stopped and the long day began.
To make along story short, I looked for him till 6.15 pm without finding another drop of blood. I knew he never made it off the hill side but yet i checked the stream below, the gully between my farm and the next. I bet i climbed that bluff fifty times trying to grid the hill to find him or more sign.
i had almost given up but decided to make one more loop up above where I had been looking and around the face of the bluff. As I came off of a very steep spot and on to a narrow bench, I saw his butt sticking out from behind a tree and his right antler. I was thinking boy this is going to not be a fun gut job. I am literally ten feet from him and he powers up and out of his bed and is like a run away frieght train out of control going down the hill. i couldnt believe it. It was now 11 hours since I made a perfect shot ( so I thought)
I followed his blood trail to the edge of the woods and then out into the open hill side which has grasses about waist high. I could see where he passed thru and followed another 50 yards.
It was now 7 pm and daylight was failing fast. I had a good Idea where he was . ahead of me is a deep gully filled with some very large red pines, apples trees and lots of nasty buck thorn. This gully is less then 200 yards up above the farm house we are presently fixing up. I snuck back up the hill to the 4 wheeler and drove out the long way, so as to not to disturb him. I knew it was going to be a cold night and he would still be there in the morning. My only fear now was the coyotes howling in the distance.
When i went back this am, he hadn't even made it to the gully. I found him 50 yards from where I quit looking. About 30 yards short of the deep gully
It turns out my perfect double lung shot was a liver hit. The exit hole was plugged with fat and I was very fortunate to have bumped him from his bed when he was as weak as he was.
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3159/2950820626_e11014167b.jpg)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3294/2950821688_0e70b9e62d.jpg)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2949970745_d664e88d88.jpg)
:thumbsup: :archer:
:clapper:
Congrats :thumbsup:
Way to go LBM, and Congratulations!! :archer:
What a nice buck! You did good by not giving up. Congratulations. Lin
Congratulations....good job on not giving up!
I love a happy ending,congratulations-awsome deer.
Awesome deer!
Big ole body on that one. Congrats LilBigMan :)
Great recovery effort,,Congrats :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Beautiful buck and great job on the recovery!
thats great! He would go on my wall if i was u :)
Nice tracking and good decisions. Congrats!
Nice job all around....I'm gonna move a copy of this to the PowWow. :thumbsup:
QuoteOriginally posted by BRONZ:
Nice tracking and good decisions. Congrats!
Agreed 100%
:clapper:
great job, way to stay with him!!! you should be dam proud man!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the way to do it !!
:thumbsup:
Great job in tracking. All your hard work paid off BIGTIME.
Way to go and a nice buck to boot!!!! Congrats! :thumbsup:
P.S. I wondered what was under that face mask :jumper: Kinda like the lone ranger :D
Nice job. That hole in him looks to be not far back of the heart. And I've had a couple strange recoveries of deer hit there as well.
Love your second picture, looking at that habitat. Nice work!
Great job, and a most beautiful buck! Congratulations!
looks like S.E. Minnesota?
i'll be hunting near Winona for the next 3 days.
Awesome !!!
Great story, and exceptional job of tracking and recovering this animal.
Quite deceiving on the angles of where you hit that monster.
Thanks for sharing, and showing how "close to the lungs" you were, and the difference in recovery time.
That is really amazing.Congratulations.
good story
Well Done! Congrats!
Great deer. Great job. It is hard to believe that that entry hole resulted in a liver hit and a 11 hour track job. Congratulations. :thumbsup:
Good job man, that is a toad of a deer, congrads on you persistence, you are right it generally pays off.
Great Job -- :thumbsup: -- Hard to beleive a hole that size would plug up - Deer do some amazing things. Sound like you really worked for this one - and what a PRIZE... Again - Great Job...
Way to go :thumbsup:
Great job! Congrats. :clapper:
Really beautiful buck LBM! Good tracking job and pics. Were you using the 47# limbs?
Great success story!
Way to stick with it!!!!! Good Job.
Great buck, pictures and story Jim. See you Sunday in central Iowa to try for a repeat.
:thumbsup:
Great job on a great deer! That really illustrates the point about keeping shots tight to the shoulder. It really looks like a good hit, but still got liver. Unreal!
Way to follow up and not quit!
Wow, Way to stay with him and not give up. Thats a great buck congrats :thumbsup: :clapper:
Tracy
Beautiful, congrats.
Great job
We have to be careful with hitting there. We are all trained to "shoot em behind the shoulder" but in reality, if you get very far back at all (more than just a very few inches) behind the elbow, you will very likely miss heart and lungs altogether and get liver.
This still means dead deer but can cause problems cause we often (me too) see where we hit and expect lungs... dead deer, wait 20 - 30 min, when in reality we should wait much longer for many liver hits. Then we follow up and bump the deer. That sometimes means little or no more blood trail.
Great job Congrats
ChuckC
Nice job, great buck. Shows what a tough animal they are. :thumbsup:
:clapper: :clapper: :clapper: Huge deer
Well done!
Nice job.
Every deer reacts differently to a liver shot. Some die rather quickly (30 minutes or less)while others take many hours like yours.
What part of MN are you from? Chad
Seems all the kudos have been given so, I'll just say, "Man, I'm jealous!" :bigsmyl:
What a beast of a buck...way to stay with it.
Congratulations!
Way to stick with it!!! Congrats
Congrats way to stick with it :thumbsup:
Great story and pictures Jim.... And, a great buck... Isn't it the greatest feeling when you're on a long tracking job loosing blood, finding blood, and eventually finding meat... We always call it our "old man easter egg hunt", nothing else can compare.. Looks like an ACS CX. If I may ask Jim, what weight and head were you using ? I have one just like it but no nice buck to lay it on !!!!!! Again, congrats. Jim
Great job and way to stay with it. Looks like a pretty good shot to me. Must have just missed the vitals.
I had a very similar experience this past Saturday. Fat deer can make for poor bloodtrails sometimes. My buck looked like he had two big tubes of toothpaste sticking out of the entry and exit wounds - it was that hard, gristly fat. Had the holes plugged shut. As hard as my tracking job was, I think you had it a heck of a lot harder. Very impressive!
Way to go on a great deer and way to stay with the deer! Congratulations!!
Very nice buck! Congrats! :thumbsup:
thanks everyone for the kind words.
It was a long tough day but worth every ounce of effort
wish me luck i am off to hunt iowa for two weeks with mr Shaun Webb
Congrats on a great deer. And way to stick it out.