Posting this in the general deer section even thow I took her with a bow.
So, some of you have been following my 2010 Guided Hunt. Well, a month or so ago my outfitter contacted me and said hey man, why don't you bring your bow out in Sept and we can whack a doe. Since I have the buck hunt scheduled for Oct for my father I was ready to take him up on the offer right away. We figured I would come out and hang over the weekend and we would try and get me my first archery deer. A nice tasty doe for the deep freeze would be a nice start to my fall deer hunting adventures.
Fast forward and I'm up in a tree stand platform watching a doe bedded behing our stand. After a bit she finally got up and walked. She was about 7 yards away but every time I would begin to draw she would look up. It seemed that she knew where each branch would give her just enough cover. Instead of going past the stand she just kind of walked off a bit. Well, my buddy said she will probably jump the fence and then cross in front of us. She then did just that. We had ranged various spots, bushes, and shrubs so we knew her general distance. As I came to full draw my buddy whispered 30. She was at a very slow walk and we gave a grunt but she wasn't interested. I put my 30 yard pin just infront of her shoulder and let fly. The arrow hit with a very solid thwak and she was clearly hurt. However, the shot was a bit back.
She walked off with a bit of the "oh s**t" stiff legged walk but only went about 80 yards and bedded down. We couldn't see any blood on her facing side. I was hoping for liver damage at this point since I knew she wasn't lung'd. So, we sat and we waited. She did get up once but only went a few steps and then laid right back down. Good sign I'm thinking. After some more waiting some more deer moved in. She was aware and stood and turned. When she turned we could see blood covering her other side. Some blood, but not a ton. She took about two steps and bedded down again. We waited and watched from about 8:30 am to about 3 and then decided we need to get on her and finish the job. We hatched a plan and got to it.
We figured we know where she was and the plan was to get on her while bedded and stick her again. We were walking the grass slowly looking for a leg, ear, whatever. I wasn't the first one to spot her and wasn't able to connect when she got up. Over the small knoll she went and we followed. Over the knoll we see a few deer far off but none are my doe. We are standing there and I look left and see ears bedded by the only decent size bush on the hillside. About 60 yards away. Wanting to end this we begin to sneak up. Her body was kind of tucked around and her head was up but not alert. Ears were up but not moving at all. There was one nice little clump of green to use as cover. At 17 yards I was out of cover but she didn't seem to have the juice to get up. I sent one last arrow and the job was done.
Once we got up on her it was clear I had hit her too far back. The arrow was not in the stomach but had cut up some other bits and pieces. We got her gutted out and back to the truck without to much hassel. After skinning and cleaning up it was clear some meat had to be trimmed but the loss wasn't that bad. Just a few more inches forward and we would have been good. However, we gave her time, waited her out, and got the job done.
For my first archery kill I am not pleased with the shot but very glad we were able to stick with it and finish her off in a fairly timely manner. Here are a few pics of me and my 'onry ol doe. Next I'm back to Omak with my father to finish off the season with a buck.
