After reading PaBen's story about his magnificant buck and asking the Lord for help, I wanted to adlib a little on my buck.(2 mulies in 30 minutes)
The location my wife and I set up my Dbl Bull blind in was a small dip tucked in some jack firs. Great spot in relation to the trails etc. Because of the dip in the ground it put our chairs a bit low for the shooting windows. We were aware of this.
My buck walked past us allowing me to come to full draw. As he turned to start feeding, he gave me a great broadside shot @ 22 - 23yds. Being fully aware of having to clear the blind with the arrow, I inched up as tall as possible in my stool, double checked my arrow position with the bind mesh that we had pulled down most of the way, located my 20yd pin tight behind his shoulder and pulled thru. The buck hunched up hard, solid hit noise and he was gone. My experience at his reaction to the hit said gut shot plus I didn't see any evidence of the hit on his chest before he was gone. I was sure of the release/shot etc so the wife and I switched stools. I also put a seat cushion on my stool for her to raise her up a bit. I had to have hit him in the chest is all I could think.
As you know, she shot her fat muley doe broadside(dbl lung)30 minutes later as we waited for mine. We waited another 30 minutes after her shot. This was very hard to do by the way as I was waiting on my best bow killed buck ever and she was ecstatic about her first ever bow kill.
It was at this time that I noticed a 1/2" notch in the hemline of the top of the mesh that we had pulled down most of the way. I had hit it wth the bottom blade of my Slick Trick Mag. This explains why my hit was to the right and slightly lower than my hold. the material was at about a 45* angle to my shot which probably pulled the shot right. The mesh is super thin and can be shot thru but the hemline is thick with material folded over the mesh and sewn.
When we walked out to the area of both shots, my arrow was laying in the grass about 20' past where the buck was standing with little blood and a lot of stomach/intestinal contents all over the arrow. A bowhunters worst nightmare. Instantly sick about it but not wanting to ruin any of my wife's first deer experience, we concentrated on her blood trail which proved to be very short. After about 3 large pink, foamy puddles, she says "isn't that her right there"? About 30yds from the shot. Dying within 2 seconds. We completed everything to do with her deer including running into town to take showers and gave my buck 6hrs to bed and hopefully die.
Sick to my stomach and waiting agonizingly. I asked the Lord for help.
At 12:30pm(shot @ 6:30am)we slowly and very quietly tried trailing my buck but there was zero blood. I asked the Lord for help finding this deer as I didn't want it to suffer any more than necessary. I also told my wife that my tag was punched today as I killed my buck whether or not we found him.
Following the direction he'd run and trying to put all my experience to work(think like a deer). We came to a large ridge that I didn't think a gut shot deer would try to climb so we dropped down lower on the ridge we were already on and started back the way we'd come. We were only about 100yds from the blind at this point when my wife says " he just got up out of his bed and walked away". Right in front of her, in a very dark, thick spot without much chance for a shot, she said he got up very slowly, stood wobbly for a second and walked off. I checked the bed and there was blood and
on both sides of the bed and a tiny bit of blood where he'd walked out.
A big thank you to the Lord and another prayer to help us more in a couple hrs.
We marked the spot with surveyors tape and backed out.
At 4pm we returned and started our search again where he got out of his bed. I stayed in the thick stuff in the bottom of the draw and had my wife stay about 30yds above me as she could see better. I told her that any hit at all on a wounded buck would help so off we go, super slow and quiet. Within 100yds she calls my name and says "he's laying right between us and I don't have a shot". I slowly back out and up some toward my wife's position and there he is, laying in his bed, not wanting to get up, facing me with a small pine tree blocking his front chest so I squeaked one just past the tree and low into his shoulder as I was below him. It was a good shot and got lung, liver and buried in his spine in front of the tenderloins. He died within about 30 seconds. I immediately thanked the Lord for allowing us to recover what is often a lost animal.
We did the text book 'gut shot' strategy by giving the buck a lot of undistrubed time, searching slowly, quietly and more time when we moved him. . We were lucky and I know for a fact that we wouldn't have found him so easily without the Lord's help. All you have to do is ask and He will help.
As I said, after reading PaBen's story, I wanted to share mine.
