Deer Day 14 - Tuesday, NOV 6th

Today was Election Day in the good ole US of A.  Got up early and voted.  Returned home about 4 pm and headed to the woods with Kathy, Alex, and Nick.

The Gang:  Ready to kill sumptin.

We hit the woods at 4:15.  It was 50 degrees F with a slight ( < 5 mph ) wind coming from the SW.   Lahrman's were out applying anhydrous ammonia to Neal's field.  Marshal was out fixing his combine so that he could pick the rest of the corn.  Bailey was shooting in his shotgun.  And the farmer at the bottoms was running a disc through the bean field.

Odd are we were screwed for the evening.  Not much chance of any deer being around with all that activity.

Alex sat W (old) stand.  Nick sat E (new) stand and Kathy walked the fence line.  I headed for the bottoms.

Kathy and I exchanged texts.  The tractor was too close and it stunk, so she went and joined Alex in the W stand.

I sat along the creek in the bottoms and enjoyed the sights.

View in the bottoms, looking N - real close to where buck died on Friday.  Taken at 5 pm.

At 5:12, I got a text from Nick saying he had shot a buck, but that he questioned whether it was a kill shot.  I told him to mark the spot where the deer was when shot and where it was last seen.  I walked his way.

Met Kathy and Alex under Nick's stand.  He walked us to where the deer stood.  The prints were easily identifiable.  I asked about how it all went down.  He said:  the tractor had returned to the road to hook up another ammonia tank.  At that time, he hit the rattling bag.  Said buck came from Boyd's, east of Nick.  He had to grunt at it 4X to get it close enough.  He picked his 30 yard pin, even though the tape indicated 20 yards - he could not convince himself that it was really 20 yards.  The shot hit the buck broadside perfectly left and right.  However, it was above the lungs and below the spine.  Basically a flesh wound.  

We took off tracking.  With four of us, we split the deer trails as we came to them.  Nick found blood and we trailed it for about 30 yards before the blood trail just disappeared.  [The wound was either already clotting or was not severe enough to bleed sufficiently - or both].

Small spots of blood were all we could find.  From Kathy's iPhone (versus Samsung Galaxy SII pics above)

We fanned out again and walked the rest of the woods.  No arrow, no more blood, and no deer recovered, even though we searched until after dark and it started raining.  We tracked close to 100 yards and then lost all sign.  Best guess is that this deer ran across the cornfield and into another woods.  He will live to see another day, but be all that much wiser.

We returned home and helped Mama with the dishes and finishing up the pork barbecue.  I also made a pot of venison Sloppy Joe's.  We had noodles to complement the meal.  Washed it all down with Sam Adam's Octoberfest.  

Next jaunt in the woods is planned for Friday and all week-end.  Shotgun season opens up a week from Saturday, so we're getting short on archery time.  This is not all true.  Archery season goes until the first Sunday in January, or 06 JAN 2012.  However, it gets REALLY cold in Indiana and the "late" archery season is only for the SERIOUS hunters - which does not include most of us - for sure, NOT Kathy.

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