Day 10 - OCT 10 = SUCCESS

Finally.  Finally after 10 straight days of hunting, the good Lord put a second deer within range.  I did not bungle this opportunity.  Read on for the full story...

Re-Phil showed up at 4:30.  We parked on the MJBT and walked in through Jenkins' standing corn.  This first picture is me in the S stand on Jenkins.  The truck is parked at the wood line ALL THE WAY in the back of the picture.  Yes it was quite a hike through standing corn...

In S stand facing E.  The truck is parked at the trees in the background.

It was 54 degrees F.  And if you thought the wind was bad yesterday, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Today was a steady 16 mph "breeze" with gusts in excess of 32 mph.  Today, however, I found a stand out of the wind.  Originally we thought we could park on the golf course and walk in from the W, as it's closer.  Seems there were golfers on the course - those idiots are dumber than we hunters.  Who could golf in weather like that???

I watched a squirrel bury nuts for a while, but nothing else was moving.  Three deer, mama and two yearlings, were headed S down the corn field - just as I thought they would.  But, they spooked about 20 yards N of me and ran into the woods.  The yearlings were all over - running, jumping, playing - but mama stood her ground, 30 yards N and behind a tree.

After what seemed like FOREVER, but was probably less than 2 minutes, she stepped out from behind the tree onto a trail and stood broadside.  Looking at the next picture, I shot over the leaves and between the two small trees in the middle of the picture.  One yearling is still there, sniffing my bolt (arrow).  Center of frame.  Blow up picture to full size and you can make her out.


From stand facing NW.  Deer was in exact middle of shot.  Yearling still in there somewhere.


My shot was exact, entering on the deer's left side and passing completely through her chest cavity.  Upon our post-mortem, I crushed a rib going in, took out both lungs, and missed the ribs on the opposite side.
I watched her run due W, stop and stand for a moment.  She snorted and then ran off.  I lost her as she headed SW.  I texted Re-Phil and told him to come help me.  It was 7:02 when I sent the text.

Interesting that one yearling stayed right with me and the other ran off.  I was able to re-cock my crossbow and load another bolt without her spooking - yes, all while sitting in the stand.  But, by the time I got into position to take another shot, she was out of range.

I headed to where I shot big mama, but did not see my bolt.  I then headed to where she stopped and found this...

A good sign when tracking deer.

I followed tracks and blood to the property line on the S.  She jumped the fence and then headed W again - and that's where she expired.  Total distance traveled is close to 100 yards.  Blood found after about 40 yards.  I sent the following picture to a few family members, friends, and hunting buddies.

Deer recovered.

From there, I drug her back to the fence.  Re-Phil helped me get her over the fence.  And then we drug her about 10 more yards to the golf course.  All told, we only had to haul her 20 yards.

We left her on Hole #4, right S of the green and walked to the club house.  We borrowed a Deer Track Golf Course golf cart and drove back out to Hole #4.  We loaded the deer and drove back to the club house.  Course owner Ken hauled us back to the truck and we transferred her to my truck once we drove back to the course.  A few pictures...

Loaded deer on Hole #4.

Now this, THIS is how to haul deer from the woods!

We gutted her at Dad's burn pile and hung her in the barn overnight (getting down to 29 F tonight).  As I washed the blood from the truck, I heard my dogs barking at the burn pile.  So I drove on back there.  Sure enough, the coyotes had already found the gut pile - one hour after leaving it there.  Amazing.

The plan is to haul her up to Simpson's in Young America on Thursday and have her processed.
Kathy already texted asking "Fresh Deer Steaks for lunch on Sat?"

This will feed the tribe a meal or two.
I have to work late on Thursday, Day 11 of hunting will not come until Friday.  Taking a day off, I guess.
Wednesday is supposed to be Date Night for me and mama.  I brought home pizza last night.  Not much of a date if you ask her...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil....
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down int...
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The ...
Read more