I Went out with my brother and a buddy for early season elk and deer this year. I was lucky enough to score a nice bull (my first and with my bow). I had a deer tag, but never got the chance to fill my deer tag during that trip. I then went out of the country for a bit and got back last week. I went to pick up my euro elk skull and talked with the taxidermist about a spot I was looking at to go for a few day trips out during late archery. He was super cool, gave me a few suggestions and even gave me a map of the area.. Joel owns Black river Taxidermy and is a great guy!
First day I went out there was more of a scouting trip with my bow, but I did see some sign and even saw a doe (this is an any deer area for late archery). No shot at the doe so I just watched her for awhile. Next time out I didn’t see or hear anything.. next day out I saw two does, but again no way to get a shot so I just watched them for a bit until my feet were too frozen to hang any longer.
So today I was able to talk my brother into going out with me for a half day hunt.
So we get to the gate, park the truck and I tell him to pick spot A or B. He says I’ll take spot B. So I explain the area and we walk to the fork in the road. We discuss the plan and decide to each take a fork and meet back up at 11:00am. So we split up and I get about 30 feet down my road and look over to the side off of the road into the reprod and there’s just a deer standing right there staring at me..
So I slowly nock an arrow and this deer just stands there watching me. I draw back and this deer takes a step and is now broadside at 20 yrds eating some leaves now. I put my 20 yrd pin on it and check my bubble (all good)so I let it fly. There’s a Loud “thwack” and I see my arrow make a perfect pass through. The deer jumps off to the right a bit and disappears. A few seconds later I see it right back where I shot it and it was slowly walking away from me. It goes about 30 yrds and we see it bed down behind a big log. We heard some russeling and then nothing... we give it about 45 min and then went looking for it. We followed it from where i shot it and saw a bit of blood, then a few more steps there was more blood and then we saw lots of blood. Behind the log, it was there and dead. Looked to be a great shot just behind the shoulders and it definitely did it’s job. We got to quartering right quick and back at the truck within an hour or so. So of course we went back out to look for a deer for my brother.
It was cool too, when we split up, he said he looked over at me and saw me nock my arrow and pull back on my bow. He said he thought I was just checking my bow to make sure everything was working. He said then when I shot he heard the “thwack” and couldn’t believe I just shot a deer just a few seconds after we split up.. pretty sweet day!! So i totally thought this deer was a nice little doe, but it was actually the smallest antlered buck I’ve ever seen! I only noticed it was a buck when I started skinning it’s back end and saw his parts.. epic season for me this year. I shot a bull elk with my bow and a sweet deer that’s gonna taste Delish, also with my bow! All diy and all on very very public land! Feeling blessed for sure!
