Trad First

[TroyH]

Shot my first trad deer this am.  Not the biggest buck I've taken, but my first trad style.  Shot him with my Bear Grizzly and wooden shafts I finished just a week ago, also Ace heads.
I wish the shot had been better, but as deer are so often unpredictable, he decided to veer off the path and was under my stand at only about 5 yards.  I didn't realize how steep the angle was until after the recovery.  Hit a little high and a few inches further back that I wanted, probably due to the fact that I was having difficulty clearing the rail on my stand when I drew back.  I also think that kept me from coming to full draw.  Anyway, hit center rib on entrance and stuck in another trying to exit, so no exit hole and no blood trail.  Bummer!  I waited longer than I normally do and then tried to trail him.  I began to think I had lost him, but to make a long story shot, I found him about 200+ yards away.

 

[joevan125]

Great job i will be trying to get my first trad harvest in a couple of weeks. That is a great picture by the way.

[BowHuntingFool]

Awesome, congrats on your first! Way to stick with it, well done!        

[mscampbell75]

     Congrats!

[Zach Mikita]

     Very Nice Im hoping I can get my first this evening!

[Mr.Vic]

 way to go...!

[straitera]

Great experience. Well done.

[JimB]

Nice job and great recovery.You can be very proud of that.

[BEN]

Congrats!!!!      

[buckeye_hunter]

Awesome, still working on my first!

Well done!  

[Fletcher]

Congratulations on #1 and the tracking job.  200yds w/o blood is quite a challenge.  Is there a good story or lesson here?

[Whip]

Congratulations!!!  Way to stick with it on the recovery - nice job!!      

[jcar315]

Congrats!!!!! Great skills on the blood trail.

[TroyH]

Well, I'll fill in some of the blanks.  On one side of me was a creek bottom and creek, and on the other side was a cut alfalfa field.  I was in a narrow tree line between the two.  I could see about 100 yds down the creek and field, so I knew he didn't cross before that, and I didn't see nor think he would head into an open field.  Even a shot deer, will usually run down a path and would want to stay in the cover.  I followed the trail in the tree line for about 100 yds, hoping to find him within that distance.  When I didn't, I searched the creek edges for sign of him crossing.  There was a cut path in the woods on the other side of the creek that I followed for a while but saw no signs.  At that point I went back to the tree line and crossed the field at about the point I couldn't see from my stand.  I searched the opposite edge of the field.  I knew he didn't go much beyond that since there was a very steep incline.  The end of the field was probably 250 yds from my stand, so I took up the tree line again (between the field and creek) and went backwards the 150 or so yds that I hadn't covered.  Soon I found him.  He stayed in the tree line and pretty much on the trail, only departing from it near the end.  A hit deer, in my experience, will follow a normal path only leaving it when they are near expiring or to hide in thick cover.  Sometimes they will go into a creek bed.  They won't generally go into difficult terrain (relatively speaking) such as up a steep slope or such.  My experience has been that they go down hill.  Of course, they sometimes do the unpredictable.  My search wasn't that long, only between 1-2 hours.

[NoCams]

Helped a friend find one years back. He shot it close to a field at the bottom of a small ridge. He knew which side of the ridge the deer went as he ran up and around the sidehill of the ridge. Even though the deer went uphill it was a gentle grade and he was also going around this ridge too at the same time. We tracked blood for about 400yds getting thinner and thinner as we went. We soon ran out of blood but kept going in the same general line around the side of the ridge, bout halfway up from the bottom.

We then came to a deep ditch running up and down the hill and I stopped. My buddy started to go down in the ditch to cross and continue on around the ridge when he turned and asked me what the heck I was waiting on..... I told him, " Your deer did not cross that ditch, we need to turn down the hill here ". The ditch was too steep for a mortally wounded deer to cross in my mind, but my buddy was convinced we should keep going around the ridge.

I made him stop for just a minute while I went down the hill along the side of that deep ditch and guess what was laying 30 yds down the hill..... Yep, his deer !!!

nocams  

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Don't you just love that feeling... Congrats Man..

[frank bullitt]

Good shootin, Troy! Love them creek bottoms and  small strips and fence rows! Great travel areas. Your not far from home! Steve  

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Congratulations! Classy choice of equipment, too; can't get much more classic than a Bear, a wooden arrow and an Ace!

[jimmerc]

Congrats!!          

[Coonbait]

Great Job! Still waiting for my first TRAD harvest.
GLENN