One less arrow-UPDATED W/STORY-PICS

[WapitiTalk1]

Wow, must be one heck of a tracking job he's on 

[CoryTDF]

7th night in the stand. I had been hunting my stands and luck had not been on my side. Opening night brought the ladies of our group an impressive three bucks. My wife was lucky enough to make a great shot on a buck that I had called "Morphodite".
http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,181567.0.html
My brother had been scouting an absolute monster buck. It had been under his stand for nearly every night but had been living like a bat. I decided to go with him and film for him and take a break from my stand. The hunt was going very well with lots of deer movement and at about 1845 it all went to pot. I saw movement near the far end of the wood line and said movement quickly materialized itself as a black and white dog. Seconds later three teenage girls came into view and began throwing rocks and sticks into the creek. There they sat in perfect innocence completely oblivious to the fact that they had ruined our hunt. So much for private land. We stuck it out until dark and saw nary a thing. We did however, we did get some good news as my brother received a text from our friend saying he had shot “Wow Tines” a buck that earned his name because of his enormous brow tines. The text read “BBD Wow TINES” so off we went to help.
The next night I received a phone call that a friend was in town, known here as “BIGMIKE”. He had two days to hunt and I wanted to get him into a deer if I could. So, I set mike up with my upper stand while I hunted the lower stand that my wife had shot her buck out of. It was here that I witnessed one of the most amazing hunting acts that I have ever seen. As Mike and I walked up the road to my stand I saw a guy standing in the field. About 80 yards past him I noticed a foam deer target/decoy. He was slowly stalking across a dirt field in a ghillie suit because as you know that makes you invisible. I told mike to pass the word to that guy that my stand was less than 100 yards away. Apparently after mike spoke to him he decided to come down the hill and see me so we could wave at each other. Being that he was invisible it was hard for me to deal with the floating pair of eyes that just showed up in front of my stand.
The guy then walked away and I believed that he had left. Fast forward another hour and right o about prime deer movement and I see the guy on the hill again. He disappears again and then I hear what I believe to be rattling. This time I’ve had it! I climb out of my tree and walk up there and it takes me a second to drink it all in. There is this guy sitting in a lawn chair in grass that is about knee high. He has his bow on the ground and he is facing the target. There is a set of rattling horns at his feet as well. So, I said “HEY! Neither of us are going to shoot anything with you up here like this.” We had a little talk and I tried my best to remain calm. I found out this was his first year hunting so I calmed down and gave him some tips and tried to help us both by showing him another place to go and telling him that the target/decoy was a waste of time. He left and I was back to hunting…….

[Jonathan_S]

   That is hilarious.  I am sorry that it was frustrating but that made my day reading all that nonsense.

[CoryTDF]

The night turned out to be a bust. I saw that coming is all I could think. I did receive a text from Mike that an unlucky bear had walked under the stand and he got to have a discussion with 100 grains of Montec. So I went to the truck and dropped off my gear and called a few friends. We searched for several hours and were unfortunately unable to recover the animal. As you are aware bears have a way of going into the thickest brush imaginable and this bear did just that. The thorns had thorns on them and those thorns were covered in thorns. I left my own blood trail on that hill and back to the truck. Once back at my house we set out morning plan and headed to bed. The morning was again ruined by another hunter walking through the middle of the field and the deer all being blown out. Mike had to leave with nothing to show for his efforts. I felt pretty bad for him.
I went home and grabbed a nap. When I woke I decided that both of my stands needed some time to rest. My friend Justin had been lucky enough to shoot a great buck out of his stand 2 days prior and since it was sitting empty I figured I would go warm the seat. So I ate some lunch and shot my bow a bit then it was off to the stand…..

[lokidog]

Crazy stuff, you did say "private land" didn't you?   

[pd]

Really not liking the new trend in success threads this year.........

I agree.  However, Cory has a way with his threads, which makes this one bearable.  I am along for the ride, too.  (Let's just hope it doesn't take 10 pages to finish.)

[CoryTDF]

I had been fighting a bit of a cold for most of the season and a lingering cough had made it difficult to be completely stealthy. I did have one saving grace and it is the only time this year that I was thankful for the fires. Three times per night for the past week the helicopters that are fighting the fire have been flying over us on their way back to base. If I could wait for the sound of the rotors I could burry my face in my sweatshirt and let out a cough. Well, as luck would have it the third helicopter never came and my lungs were protesting and trying to kick out whatever evil was in them. Each breath was rattling and wheezing. It took every bit of concentration that I could muster to keep myself from going into a coughing fit. I was thinking about it so hard that I had forgotten to watch for deer.
The stand was located on a field edge and is the main trail for nearly all the deer that leave the bedding area to go feed. This super highway has been hot with activity for many years and the earth wears the scars of millions of hoof prints. I was snapped out of my coughing concentration by the sound of a breaking stick. Something was out there and it was coming my way.     

[Woodchuck]

Was it carrying a foam decoy and wearing a ghillie suit? 

[CoryTDF]

I looked up to see a small fawn walk out. His little white dots seemed to dance as shook the dust and hounds tongue from his fur.  He walked right up to the trail camera and began to pose. I feel like he thought it was a photo shoot. Soon his mother came out and pushed him along. Well, that little fawn was the cork on the bottle and the deer came pouring out. I could hardly keep track of them all as they came out all around me. My cough still lingered and I was scared to death that I would burst into a fit and blow all the deer out. I fought with everything I had to breath without coughing. I could not blow this stand, not with this many deer coming out. Four does had stopped to graze about 25 yards from the stand. Light was fading and was beginning to lose faith that I would see a buck. Then came the crack. It was not a loud crack but it was there. It was enough for the does to jump and scatter.
The buck came out and stopped in the same area the does had been. He was facing away from me but I knew right away that he was a shooter. We had been watching him for months and he had only come out in the daylight 3 times. My brother named him “Hans Solo” as he only has one brow tine. The does filtered back in and as they fed the buck put his head down and turned broadside. This was my shot, this was the time. Draw…Don’t cough! God please don’t cough! My anchor points were set. The pin danced up and down with each heart beat and fear of coughing did not allow for a deep calming breath. I felt primal. I felt like I was in a battle against my body as it was trying to sabotage my hunt. My eyes blinked and I dug up the inner calmness that was needed to rest the pin on the vitals. The bow rolled forward….. 

[Jonathan_S]

and then you woke up?

[stromdiddily]

and then you woke up?

I think he dropped his bow 

[jkthomps]

He starting coughing...

[CoryTDF]

The green Nocturnal shot like a laser into the side of the buck and he jumped in protest. He turned and ran out of sight. I put my bow on the hook and with trembling hands I stuffed a balled up sweatshirt into my face and liberated my lungs. Once I regained my composure I sat back to analyze what had just happened. I thought that the shot felt good but I remembered that it looked a little far back. Not to far but not a perfect shot. The Nocturnal was not shining in the grass and I was not sure where it had gone. After 30 minutes I climbed out of the stand and walked to my truck. I would go home and eat some dinner and get my brother and another friend who is good at finding blood and we would go in and access the blood. If it looked bad we would leave the buck until the morning.
When we arrived it was black, pure black. There was no green orb shining anywhere. I walked down a game trail and was on blood within 40 yards. It was not great but good enough. The next hundred yards would take us on a journey that lead in for about 100 yards and then into a circle with a line through the middle. The blood ended at the creek. We decided that it was best to leave it for the morning. I went home to make a feeble attempt to sleep. The alarm was too slow and I turned it off before it had a chance to annoy me.
The creek rumbled on and the blood that had shined so clear the night before had faded and dried. I stepped into the clear water and worked my way across. It would be two hours before we found another drop of blood. That drop led to more and we were again standing at the creek edge. We crossed and worked the area on the other side. I located a bed that had a considerable amount of blood in it. Now where? The bed was right next to a swamp and another well beaten trail. I explored the trail and found nothing so the swamp was the next choice. I walked through the water and 7 foot grass and popped out in a locust tree grove. I was standing in the grass looking out over the field. Seeing nothing I looked to the ground and saw the buck lying next to a tree only 5 feet away. Victory!!!! I could not believe it the buck had come all the way back and died parallel to his blood trail and more than halfway back to the stand. 2015 season was over, I was done. This is the best whitetail I have been able to harvest and I am ecstatic.         

[CoryTDF]

 

[Woodchuck]

Well done man