One down, three to go... Weathergirl strikes first

[lokidog]

Well, my wife Kelli, aka Weathergirl, wanted me to post the story of her buck she got yesterday.  Here is her version… Yeah, I went deer hunting, shot a buck, tracked it a ways, found it, and dragged it home.  She’s not much of a story teller, and this is actually probably twice as long as she would tell it. 

Here’s my version…  She was excited this year to try to get a buck opening day and we had several  including one known as Tall Boy that were coming by the house regularly.  One other was a little larger racked but about the same body size.  We have at least a two year history with Tall Boy.  Unfortunately, the weather has been hot and I have been too busy to butcher a deer so she decided to hold off.  He was there opening morning but we just took pictures with the trail cam.  Well, the day finally came where I had a little bit of time, and the weather had cooled down a bit, so she went out yesterday after she got home from school to see which deer might come by.  She went out to the blind behind the house (I set up a couple weeks ago) and I went to the garden on the other side of the house.  About six minutes later she came around from the back with a nervous grin on her face.  What?  Already?  Sure enough, he came out within minutes of her getting into the blind. 

The first picture is of Tall Boy about three weeks ago, the second is from about a week ago with a smaller 3X2.  They woke her up at 5:00 about four days in a row last week while I was elk hunting.  Then there is a picture of her blind out back, carefully brushed in I might add.        And, one of Kelli pointing out the blood trail to our little guy.

Well, we waited about fifteen minutes to go around the house and see if her arrow was there.  All she could remember of the shot (a bit of adrenaline had kicked in I think) was that he turned away just as she let the arrow fly and it might have been a little far back.  Within ten yards of the spot there was some pretty good bright blood.  About twenty yards later we found all but the leading two inches of her arrow with blood all the way to the fletch, she does shoot a fairly short arrow though.    We decided to follow very slowly to give him some time but we didn’t want to wait until dark.  After another thirty or so yards, we lost the blood trail.  We knew the direction he was going so we started following trails looking for him or blood.  He was only bleeding on the entry side so we knew it was not a pass through shot.  Suddenly, we heard a bunch of crashing in the salal near the chicken coop so we stopped to listen.  I moved closer to Kelli who was closer to the noise than myself and saw some blood just a few steps farther on the trail she was on.  So we waited.  Now it was about 50 minutes since she took the shot.  We could hear brush breaking from a little ways into the woods so we slowly and quietly followed the trail.  There was very little blood at this point.  Every now and then we would find more blood, a drop here or there, a small spray where he probably stood for a minute.  Then the trail entered the woods, and the salal.  The blood was gone again, but there was only one trail where it had been going so we continued.  Every now and then we heard deer in the brush and another was even behind us where we had just come through.  I had her cut back to the edge of the trees and I decided to do a loop around to where we had heard the crashing.  I continued probably another twenty five yards without any sign.  I heard a noise off to my side in the brush so moved over to see what it was and saw one drop of blood on a sedge blade.  I then was able to pick up the trail and with a little bit of guessing directions finally came to a dirt hill that had several drops of blood on it.  As I climbed to the top, I could see him down off the side.  Thank goodness we found him as we were both getting a bit worried. 

If someone can explain how to write, post a pic, write, and post another pic< I would appreciate it, then the pics in the future can go with the narrative.

[lokidog]

The next picture is the as he lies shot.  The next couple are of Kelli digging down through the salal brush to even be able to see his head.  Finally, she got her hands on him and then a zoomed out shot again to show the hole he was in.

We finally dragged him home, yeah!

[lokidog]

And, the trophy shot.

Getting a bead on him was the easy part, putting the tag on him, he made us work for it.  The shot ended up going behind/below his right lung, through the middle of his left lung, and lodging on the inside of his left shoulder.  I actually used a metal detector to find the broadhead as it did not show up when gutting him.

[Special T]

Nice! way to go! That is some deep salal.. So did you have heart and Backstrap for dinner?

[lokidog]

I'm the only one here that likes the heart, so it will go in the freezer.  Got it quarted and in the fridge today, no eats yet.  Have to let it age a few days as I have a job that suddenly needs to get finished for the weekend.  I am eating that inside tenderloin with my eggs for breakfast though.   

[Special T]

Deer steak and eggs! Breakfast of champions!

[denali]

Nice looking buck..  good wright up and pics

[NWBREW]

That's a beautiful buck. Great writeup. How come bucks don't show up when I first get into my blind. 

[ICEMAN]

Good job!

[DOUBLELUNG]

Right on Weathergirl!  LD, you guys rock!

[buglebuster]

Congrats 

[jackmaster]

thats a big 2 pt thats for sure, congrats weathergirl, my luck that buck would have died in that brush right on top of a yellow jacket nest    .. is that tall boy then or the other one?

[runamuk]

congrats looks like a big buck...love the pics...

[Rhinoron247]

Tastey buck and a great story.

[jstone]

Nice Job.