Got lucky again this year with the recurve. I was out a bit in the back woods behind my house, doing some stump shooting in the middle of the day with a Judo point. There was moderate wind and a bit of a rain starting so there was a lot of background noise. I was being pretty quiet but not really hunting. All of a sudden I heard some thrashing in the brush about fifty yards away. I turned to look and was shocked to see this buck destroying a tree with a diminutive doe looking on.
Stupidly, I hadn't brought any broadheads with me, even though my MF deer tag was still unfilled. I snuck back to the house, hoping he'd stay put. I grabbed my hunting quiver and snuck back out. At first I couldn't see him at the tree but I snuck through the timber and quickly found him following the doe. I knew where he was likely headed so I looped wide around them downwind. A minute or so later they came by, close but not exactly where I expected. I snuck in a few more yards on wet leaves, to about 20 yards. He heard me then, and turned to look at me quartering away. I shot him just in front of the last few ribs on the left, and the arrow went out in front of the opposite shoulder and fell on the ground. He ran fifty yards in less than ten seconds and was down. The whole thing was kinda surreal - I had thought I was just going out for a little practice session.
He's got a cool nontypical caribou thing going on and tons of basal mass.
He was definitely rutting, tarsal glands totally soaked, neck swollen, tangy smell, and really killing the trees in front of a doe. Seemed early to me for him to be out in force but... you find em when you find em.
I used my 55# Wes Wallace recurve and a Zwickey Cliff broadhead.
