Last Saturday morning at 5:30a.m. I stood in my front yard under the weight of quite a dilemma.
Typically, due to my lack of funds and available property, I only have one stand for each wind direction. However, earlier in the season I "Wenselized" my Grandfather's property by creating a slick funnel in the creek bottoms near my home. In doing so, I created another stand option for a SW wind. At the time, I thought this was a stroke of brilliance. On this particular morning, I found myself wondering if I'd had a stroke instead. So, it came down to the "Doublestand" or the "Funnel stand". Yes, I amaze myself with my clever stand naming, too.
Agonizing over the decision, I decided a highly scientific approach was in order.
Gotta go for a few. Be back with the remainder shortly.
Tap-Tap-Tap
we're waiting!
Not a fair intro! .... but effective.... :bigsmyl: :coffee:
After a heated session of eenie-meenie-minie-moe, the Funnel stand won out. However, shortly after climbing into my ladderstand, I began to wonder if I'd eenied when I should have meenied.
Sure enough, an hour after climbing into my stand a nice buck ran 5 does directly under the Doublestand, which I could see 100 yards away. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! I fought off the urge to climb down right then and slip across the bottoms to the other stand. Instead, I decided to sit tight for awhile.
Well, after an hour I finally lost the argument with myself. Carefully, I slipped out of my stand to slowly stalk over to the Doublestand. After arranging my gear I screwed in my bowhanger, prepared to sit for the long haul.
Within 30 seconds of sitting down for the first time, I glanced over my shoulder to see a lone doe 70 yards away, browsing in my direction. Being the end of November, does were definitely back on the hit list.
:campfire: :coffee:
Slowly, but surely she browsed closer and closer. Intently watching her backtrail for fifteen minutes failed to produce a buck for which I yearned so bad, and finalized my decision to take the shot if one was presented.
All at once, her pace went from snail-like to hare, and she covered the final fifty yards in less than two minutes.
Now came my next conundrum; would she pass to my left or my right? To my left would be most desirable, as I was already in good shooting position. A move to my right would require a lot of movement on my part, sprinkled with quite a bit of luck to execute without being picked-off.
Sure enough, she veered to my right.
:campfire:
Now, this next part bears mentioning. Earlier this season I filed all of my nocks to achieve better arrow flight. However, on a few I got a little carried away. It just so happened the arrow I had nocked this morning was one of these.
So, in a fashion a sniper would be envious of, I made the 360 degree turn into a suitable position. Upon completion, I began to place tension on the string, and as I did the Kwik-Lok arrow holder proved to have a better grip on my arrow than my nock.
As the doe eased into a wide open shooting lane only 10 yards away, I was furiously attempting to re-nock my now impotent arrow. Finally, after much fumbling, I was again locked and loaded.
She was standing only 13 yards away, moderately quartering away, and looking in the other direction. For once, I was cool as a cucumber as I began to draw while simultaneously burning a hole through the hair I wanted to hit. Upon reaching full-draw, back tension was applied until I felt the "bump" of my clicker.
The release was instinctive, and I watched as the arrow hit precisely where I would have wanted. Or so I thought.
I am interested!! :thumbsup: :campfire:
Nice story so far.
:coffee: :coffee: :coffee:
Thank you. Sorry for the interrupted posts, but I have two little ones running around so each time I hit a stopping point I have to stop to settle the most recent crisis.
Now back to the regular scheduled programming...
At impact it appeared as if I'd shot a blunt into a trampoline. Watching the arrow penetrate, I was dumbfounded when it halted progress to seemingly push the eject button. The arrow reversed course, launched about ten feet into the air, then landed ten yards away. There was no accompanying "crack", or any other clue to belay what had occurred.
Immediately upon arrow departure, the doe began literally plowing away with her nose in the dirt, and her front legs barely keeping her on her, uh, feet. After a 25 yard circular dash, she righted herself, flicked her tail, and began to steadily walk.
Surely, I had hit her right where I thought I had, right? How could my eyes betray me at such a close distance? Deciding to stick with my initial belief, I nocked a second arrow. Finding an opening ahead of where she was walking proved difficult, and I was forced to wait until she was nearly 30 yards away. Normally I do not shoot at this distance, however I knew she was hit, although I was not positive where, and wanted to get another arrow into her.
As she oozed into the next opening I released a second arrow, which struck her directly in the spine. Only thinking of getting down to dispatch her as quickly as possible, I rushed down the tree.
Running to where she laid proved needless, as she was already dead. The first arrow had indeed been perfect. Let the head scratching begin.
Searching for what could have been the cause of such an erratic arrow reaction proved fruitless at first.
Seeing an opportunity, I wanted to let my four-year-old boy, Walker, hone his tracking skills on this easy track. So, I called my wife and told her to dress him appropriately, and informed her I'd be back at the house soon. To my surprise, she said she wanted to tag along to video the experience. This meant my two-year-old daughter would be along for the adventure also.
After arriving back home, retrieving the tools for an efficient (read: clean) field-dressing, wrestling the kids into their clothes, we were finally on our way.
As you'll see in the video I post tomorrow, (thanks to a very slow connection), Walker didn't do too bad for his first time out. He had the same problem most adults I track with have; blazing ahead in the assumed direction instead of sticking to finding blood.
For now, a picture will have to suffice:
(http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu158/Stephen_M_Lathrop/deer011.jpg)
What hapened with the first arrow? Can't wait for the rest!!!
Cool stuff Dusty! I bet "Daddy is pretty cool for taking us along tracking deer". Looking forward to the video.
Really cool thread.
I watched over the shoulder of my son when he experienced a "bounce out". The arrow gave the appearance of literally bouncing off the deer. It looked like he got ZERO penetration.
In reality, it had penetrated slightly quartering into the opposite shoulder, took out both lungs and some big pipes on top of the heart. With a shattered shoulder and a destroyed pump station, the deer made it only 40 yards.
I will check in after work for the rest of the story! :thumbsup:
Shot a doe a couple of years ago, and it appeared that the arrow had stopped on the shoulder and barely penetrated. Actually it had penetrated through the lungs to the opposite shoulder and bounced back, although it did stay in the deer, barely. Needless to say I was much relieved when I found her, about 50 yards away. The tip of my Snuffer was curled, the only time that's happened to me.
Nice story Dusty!
How 'bout that arrow? What happened?
Nice looking family and deer, good story.....Phil
Just completely great read! Interested what happened with the arrow.
J
I've had some bounce backs resulting from impact with the offside shoulder as well. However, my amateur autopsy proved this not to be the case.
After getting her back to the house and suspended from the cherry picker, I began to skin her. I always remove the legs at the knee joint for ease of hide removal. While removing the left (offside) leg I noticed what appeared to be a gash about 4 inches up from her hoof.
As I inspected the gash I realized this was not just a gash, but a Woodsman-shaped hole. Now, while I can never be certain, here is what I believed to have happened.
Being only 13 yards away the angle of entry was quite steep. You can see in the photograph posted above there is a ruffled area of hair just behind the shoulder about 2/3rds of the way up from the bottom; this was the entry hole. What you cannot see is the arrow exited directly out of the armpit on the offside, but never making contact with any portion of the leg except for the spot I described near the hoof. Would have had a picture of the leg for better clarification if my dog had not decided to stash the leg in parts only known to him.
It appeared to me as the arrow was passing through, and the doe began to bolt, as her front leg was lifting it impacted the arrow on its way down. Where the arrow hit the leg was only tendon and bone, no meat to speak of whatsoever. So, I'm assuming this is what created the launch sequence.
What do you think?
By the way, I left the tracking video uploading overnight only to awake to an "Error in Upload" screen from Photobucket this morning. I set it to upload once again, so hopefully I can post the video when I get back home this evening.
Congrats :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Good day hunting,
Great shot,
Having the kids want to help out, Priceless
Congrats.
The strangest things in life are always true!!
Sounds like you've a plausable explanation to an undying mystery! :)
Yep, the truth is always stranger than fiction.
Case in point is the either rabid or distempered raccoon on my patio when we returned home with the doe. A story for another place, no bows or arrows were involved.
Video is a little shaky...motion sickness sufferers consider yourselves warned.
(http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu158/Stephen_M_Lathrop/th_VID00173.jpg) (http://s643.photobucket.com/albums/uu158/Stephen_M_Lathrop/?action=view¤t=VID00173.mp4)
Nice video,he's a good tracker with alittle help.
trackers in training ... very cool