I thought we could use a page for stories of people hunting where there may not be a harvest picture but a story worth sharing.
I'll start.
I am really fighting the
from last year of shooting a small buck in the early season. I'm trying hard to not hunt real hard which I realize.....well isn't working very well.
Tonight I was checking out some different ground and taking pictures. I see a small buck and decide to take a picture, as soon as I'm done with that ONE picture, I see a nice buck stepped out into view. (maybe 160 yards) So...I take some more pictures. This buck starts to grow on me and I dont' think I can pass him up. He crosses over into a draw, the wind is good and I'm thinking they'll cross over a small ridge allowing me to close the gap, come up behind them for a possible shot. As I wait for the buck to cross over, he turns back and starts heading the way he came. I do my belly crawl and am looking to intercept. One small buck is standing on the ridge they were supposed to go over and kinda looks my way a few times but isn't getting too nervous. Half an hour later, I'm in position and waiting for this big 3pt to cross and nothings coming. I ranged the small buck and he is 65 yards and I KNOW the big buck has to be between us.
I peek over some sage and see the big 3 right infront of me, still unaware I'm there at 28 YARDS BEDDED DOWN. Here's the problem, he is quartered towards me feet to my left. I have 20 min of light left or so and notice my breathing is faster than normal
. So, I draw my bow and rise over the top waiting for him to stand. He
still isn't looking at me directly. I then bob my head a few times to make some more movement. This catches his attention......I'm still holding, he's still looking. 30 seconds go by and I bob my head again and I learned they really don't like that! He jumps up, wields around and bolts. I now voice bleet a couple times, he slows and stops quartering hard away. I'd guess that the window between the front of his hip and his shoulder would only be about 8 inches. I hold for 55 yards and send it.
Now..... I see my arrow in flight and I'm thinking it looked real good. (well, I thought it went where I had told it to anyway) The buck takes off along with his three other buddies (one of which I never saw until this point that was bigger, a nice heavey 4x4) across the canyon. They run 150 yards, stop and look back and just stand there. I'm watching my buck hard, looking to see if he swaggers, hunches up etc, I'm not seeing anything. I glass him real hard and he looks clean. I watch them trot a ways, stop, look, trot, stop and repeat for half a mile. I'm keeping a mental image of every place they stop to help with a blood trail but......at this point I'm still fairly optimistic. I go down to his previous bed, range where I was standing, follow his tracks to where he first stopped (crap, as I'm typing this I realize I should have ranged that spot from my shooting location) anyway, I find my arrow and it's clean, follow tracks a bit more to be certain and....well, long story not so short, I had a GREAT evening! I may be the first of the season (to admit it anyway) that I missed a buck and I suppose that's alright (second miss in 4 years). I can't remember a stalk where I got much closer....I still don't know what the hell went wrong, I guess it just wasn't supposed to be.
Anyway, I felt like sharing.
Gringo
