Caribou Gear

My First Deer Part 4 (A Shot I Never Should Have Taken)

RG_Adult_Onset_Hunter

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Joined
Dec 10, 2019
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223
Location
Ruch, Oregon
My saddle arrived a week or so into the season. This was the new plan I needed. I had spent several weeks staring at the various trees on the property trying to select the best one to use. I wanted something near the travel pathway of the deer, easy to get to from my access point, and with some wind advantage in my favor. No matter what tree I looked at I felt like I was making some sort of trade off. My ladder also limited my access as it required contact with the ground, and it required complete assembly on the ground to be attached to the tree. I adore elegant engineering, and I detest sloppy engineering. My saddle was in the former category, my ladder the latter.

I picked a white oak that was ramrod straight, allowing a solid overwatch of the pinch point I was using as well as a few follow up opportunities on the deer’s way into bedding cover. The trade off for this tree was wind, I’d have to get HIGH if I wanted my scent to carry over the deer. In the middle of a hot day when I knew the deer were not around, I set my tree up. I cussed the ladder at each step in the process, but got it secured while trimming branches out of my ascent path. I cleaned up shooting lanes, but not as much as I should have. I hung my platform as well since I had no concern about others using or hunting from my stand. The last detail I took care of was raking the pathway to my stand, the leaves being terribly crunchy this time of year.

Am I Blue by Hoagy Carmichael is a respectable way to wake up at an unrespectable hour. This was the song I would here at daybreak, for several days, my wife wisely forbidding me from using a beeping alarm at such an hour. Each day that song filled me with hope that “today might be the day”.

Each day wasn’t.

I’d see things. A doe licking its fawn. A black bear much to close to my stand when it was far too dark to identify as such. Two young bucks sparring with each other while the big guys I cared about looked on them with a kind of tolerant disdain. All out of reach, but not for long.

One morning, before I knew it, that goofy looking “spike” was directly under my tree. Feeding and milling about as though without a care in the world. I studied his line of movement to figure out ways I could shoot if he was the deer I was looking for. I came up with a plan. I watched Donnie Darko follow up the lane, come to the pinch point, and almost hesitantly jump into my property. He then ran the only possible direction that I would not be able to shoot him and stopped well out of range. To add insult to injury, Jude jumped the fence way behind me and was out of my lane before I could have even hoped to prepare, all the while, this doofy spike was oblivious to my presence. I do not think I got winded. I think Darko wanted to put distance between himself and my old blind when he decided to follow the “spike”, and Jude just decided to take a shortcut. Just bad luck.

What came next was me just being dumb and inexperienced. I should have just stayed in the tree, they would have filtered out the same way they came in. I made the decision to stalk these animals instead. I had done it pre-season when I was attempting to retrieve my archery target in order to get some practice in, and there were less animals here today to spot me. I also believe I had some afternoon obligation; I can’t remember because it got blown off after this.

I used the creek bottom on my property as visual cover, but the leaves and loose rocks made a difficult approach. It took me the better part of an hour to move 60 yards. I knew that if I tried to round the whole creek that I would get busted as the deer had a remarkably good habit of picking a site where they could see, but you would not see them. For this reason, I made the decision to leave the creek bed and move through the flat section of tall grasses towards their bedding area. I had hoped to use the trees and shrubs as cover for my approach, which would have worked if the deer were where I thought they would be. 75 yards out, Jude stood up and looked at me while I was right out in the open. I stayed still in an awkward half crouch for almost an hour while he bored a hole in my forehead. Legs cramped and feet assumed dead, I was finally allowed to move briefly when Jude put his head behind a tree while trying to get a better look at me. This movement got me out of Judes view, but the spike picked it up (I had lost track of him). Now he was up, trying to ascertain what I was, but not able to make out the picture well enough. I managed to lay down and wait for several minutes while I used my ears to listen for the animals to settle down.

Darko, had not seen me. The other two had not spooked completely. This was my opportunity to leave. I should have taken it. I instead tried to press my luck, thinking that this might be my last chance if I had spooked them out of their beds. I pushed on and inevitably got busted at 45 yards (I had set my range cap at 30 yards to be conservative). Jude jumped the fence almost immediately, Darko and the spike were loath to do so, they kept trying to circle me, and short stopping to figure out exactly what I was up to. Eventually, I knew they would either leave the way Jude did or give me a chance at a shot. I should have slowed down and accepted that I had been busted, and that this was not my opportunity anymore, but I did not. I saw Darko make his plan to escape, and I came up with a plan that would get me close to him as he came by. It worked, he stood across the creek bed 30 yards from me broadside. This would have been a slam-dunk shot for me had he been unaware, but I knew he was going to move. I knew, where he was going to move, and I knew how long my arrow was going to take to get there. I swept my pin through his heart from front to back established my lead and calmly squeezed the trigger, certain I would kill this deer. I watched the arrow graze a tree, the bark exploding directly in front of Darko’s heart as he passed behind it. It was a stupid shot. I will never take one like that again. I have rules for the animals I hunt, and that day I made a new one. I’m only shooting arrows at deer when they do not have a clue I am there.

A half inch to the left and I would have killed Darko, of that I am certain. A half inch to the right and the broadhead would have sunk deeply into the tree, likely ruining the arrow and only injuring my pride. I wonder what lessons I would have learned with either of those scenarios? I won’t know because neither of them happened, I picked up my arrow, covered in hair and mildly specked with blood and knew I had done the thing I had hoped more than anything I would not do. I wounded.

My neighbor had seen the whole thing play out. His contractor was able to give a detailed picture of the deer’s behavior and travel path after the shot. I reviewed video of his leaving past my trail camera. I remembered the position of the arrow on the same side of the animal tracks as I was on. I found every scrap of blood in my power to find. None of that made me feel any better. Anyone who thinks that hunters do not love animals only need ask what it feels like when we screw up. There is nothing worse. After tearing apart my property and a chunk as though it was a crime scene, I concluded that this could not have been a severe hit. I stared at my tag, and I wondered what to do. I know some would punch it, others would not. For me, it stayed in my pocket without me hunting. I needed to know Darko was alive and had not succumbed to infection from my hubris.
I have never been so relieved as to see the picture in the first post. That’s Darko, the first time I saw him after this incident. He made it. I watched him carefully over several other occasions. He was fine. But he was also in full spec ops mode, working under the cover of darkness.

I decided I could still use my tag. Had I seen even a little hint of any wound I’d have punched it. It did not happen that way, but of that I feel certain.

The issue was figuring out plan C.
 
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