bigdonniebrasco
Active member
As I'm sure some of you know, I got serious about hunting within the past year. I wanted to harvest a Pronghorn buck (I did that last month) and I also wanted to harvest a whitetail buck this year (Elk and Mulie bucks within the next few years).
I have never been a serious bowhunter, but this past year I got a new-to-me bow and practiced a lot. When season cam around I sat in as many treestands as possible for as long as possible, but the difference this year... I tried to be SMARTER. I really paid attn to the wind, the weather patterns, scrapes, rubs etc. In years past I never saw a buck, and on rarely saw does. This year, I saw more deer in a DAY than I saw in the past five years combined. I took a really nice doe last week in central KS, and last Friday I finally got my buck!
I had seen lots of nice bucks, and a few MONSTERS, one 12 point beast outsmarted me one morning and I simply wasn't ready for him to walk out to the West of me at 12 yards... I was at full draw facing East! When I turned and saw him, he looked at me and bounced off... I was devastated, and wanted to scream! LOL
A week later my hunting buddy shot a REALLY nice 10 point from "my" stand while I was out of town.
Then last Friday I snuck out of work a few hours early to go sit for 3 hours in a stand that I had ZERO confidence in, but my partner said would be perfect for this North wind that had come up.
after about an hour of sitting I had a nice doe come in at 50 yards and stop, after a few minutes a very VERY large, perfect 12 point buck came crashing past as mach 2 with 3 coyotes in hot pursuit! ARGH!!!!
I was was again crushed, and even took a potshot at a yote (clean miss).
About 30 min left of shooting light and I looked over my right shoulder and up on a ridge to the north of me at about 60 yards was a deer ... looked like a buck but I wasn't sure til he turned to walk away.
My hunting buddy is in his sixties and SWEARS by grunt calls for whitetail bucks, but I never gave them much faith, but I had nothing to lose ...... "gruuuuunt" he froze, turned, and started lumbering my way like Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh. Scraping every little tree along the way. At about 50 yards I could tell he had some head-gear but I told myself "DO NOT LOOK AT HIS RACK"! I knew I would just get all shaky and flub the shot, or worse, injure him. I could see his face, and he looked OLD... really old!
My mouth got REALLY dry, my knees were weak, and I was a little concerned standing on the tiny platform! It took more work than usual to get my release to the loop. If he stayed to my left I would have to contend with my safety harness strap, and I wasn't sure how that would work. As Eeyore closed the distance directly behind me, he took a sharp turn South. That meant due to my harness, I would have to do a 360 degree pirouette in order to have him at 15 yards to the southeast of me instead of northeast of me. I was terrified my stand would creak or something but it didn't. I picked where I would try and stop him, and he was almost there. My ears filled with the POUNDING of my heart, I could FEEL my heart just banging against my ribs, and I was shaking like a virgin at the moment of truth "this really might happen" ............
I think I made some sort of stupid noise you hear on hunting shows when they try and stop a deer... I don't think he stopped, I honestly don't remember. I made the dumb noise and released at the same time. In my head the shot looked good. He made a half-hearted buck and trotted a few steps, flicked his tail and started strolling up the ridge to the south of me. I was freaking out, trembling, cotton mouth, and sure that I had just wounded a buck I would never find in the dark! It was supposed to be almost 80 degrees tomorrow.
He stopped to look around, flick his tail and keep walking up the ridge like nothing happened! I was quietly "praying" out loud "go down, go down". At the top of the ridge he looked around walked several steps and laid down. After a moment, he laid over, then decided to stand, but he was very wobbly so he laid back down 40 yards from my stand. No thrashing or anything.
There is a part of me that seriously think that he was like "I'm old and tired, and I don't feel like fighting this".
I am no deer expert but the 2 lifelong hunters that helped me drag him out swore this brute was 7+years old, and pushing 300 pounds. Almost no top teeth.
They encouraged me to just grind him into burger and be done with him, but for some reason that didn't feel like the honorable thing to do with this majestic monarch! I do all my own processing and last night we had a blind tasting with my with and girls. I cut sirloin from the hind, his backstraps, DOE backstraps, and his MASSIVE heart. Hard to believe the the overall winner was hind-cut sirloin and it was spectacular!!!
*my 6 yr old daughter almost ate the entire heart herself!
I like to think that this old guy was just the master of his territory, and he went out on top before getting beat down, run out and having those coyotes run him down, or worse, winter/starvation.
Thanks for listening to my rambling, no one else "gets it"!
I am adding pict of the BIG doe that I shot as a comparison to the sheer mass of this monster!
I have never been a serious bowhunter, but this past year I got a new-to-me bow and practiced a lot. When season cam around I sat in as many treestands as possible for as long as possible, but the difference this year... I tried to be SMARTER. I really paid attn to the wind, the weather patterns, scrapes, rubs etc. In years past I never saw a buck, and on rarely saw does. This year, I saw more deer in a DAY than I saw in the past five years combined. I took a really nice doe last week in central KS, and last Friday I finally got my buck!
I had seen lots of nice bucks, and a few MONSTERS, one 12 point beast outsmarted me one morning and I simply wasn't ready for him to walk out to the West of me at 12 yards... I was at full draw facing East! When I turned and saw him, he looked at me and bounced off... I was devastated, and wanted to scream! LOL
A week later my hunting buddy shot a REALLY nice 10 point from "my" stand while I was out of town.
Then last Friday I snuck out of work a few hours early to go sit for 3 hours in a stand that I had ZERO confidence in, but my partner said would be perfect for this North wind that had come up.
after about an hour of sitting I had a nice doe come in at 50 yards and stop, after a few minutes a very VERY large, perfect 12 point buck came crashing past as mach 2 with 3 coyotes in hot pursuit! ARGH!!!!
I was was again crushed, and even took a potshot at a yote (clean miss).
About 30 min left of shooting light and I looked over my right shoulder and up on a ridge to the north of me at about 60 yards was a deer ... looked like a buck but I wasn't sure til he turned to walk away.
My hunting buddy is in his sixties and SWEARS by grunt calls for whitetail bucks, but I never gave them much faith, but I had nothing to lose ...... "gruuuuunt" he froze, turned, and started lumbering my way like Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh. Scraping every little tree along the way. At about 50 yards I could tell he had some head-gear but I told myself "DO NOT LOOK AT HIS RACK"! I knew I would just get all shaky and flub the shot, or worse, injure him. I could see his face, and he looked OLD... really old!
My mouth got REALLY dry, my knees were weak, and I was a little concerned standing on the tiny platform! It took more work than usual to get my release to the loop. If he stayed to my left I would have to contend with my safety harness strap, and I wasn't sure how that would work. As Eeyore closed the distance directly behind me, he took a sharp turn South. That meant due to my harness, I would have to do a 360 degree pirouette in order to have him at 15 yards to the southeast of me instead of northeast of me. I was terrified my stand would creak or something but it didn't. I picked where I would try and stop him, and he was almost there. My ears filled with the POUNDING of my heart, I could FEEL my heart just banging against my ribs, and I was shaking like a virgin at the moment of truth "this really might happen" ............
I think I made some sort of stupid noise you hear on hunting shows when they try and stop a deer... I don't think he stopped, I honestly don't remember. I made the dumb noise and released at the same time. In my head the shot looked good. He made a half-hearted buck and trotted a few steps, flicked his tail and started strolling up the ridge to the south of me. I was freaking out, trembling, cotton mouth, and sure that I had just wounded a buck I would never find in the dark! It was supposed to be almost 80 degrees tomorrow.
He stopped to look around, flick his tail and keep walking up the ridge like nothing happened! I was quietly "praying" out loud "go down, go down". At the top of the ridge he looked around walked several steps and laid down. After a moment, he laid over, then decided to stand, but he was very wobbly so he laid back down 40 yards from my stand. No thrashing or anything.
There is a part of me that seriously think that he was like "I'm old and tired, and I don't feel like fighting this".
I am no deer expert but the 2 lifelong hunters that helped me drag him out swore this brute was 7+years old, and pushing 300 pounds. Almost no top teeth.
They encouraged me to just grind him into burger and be done with him, but for some reason that didn't feel like the honorable thing to do with this majestic monarch! I do all my own processing and last night we had a blind tasting with my with and girls. I cut sirloin from the hind, his backstraps, DOE backstraps, and his MASSIVE heart. Hard to believe the the overall winner was hind-cut sirloin and it was spectacular!!!
*my 6 yr old daughter almost ate the entire heart herself!
I like to think that this old guy was just the master of his territory, and he went out on top before getting beat down, run out and having those coyotes run him down, or worse, winter/starvation.
Thanks for listening to my rambling, no one else "gets it"!
I am adding pict of the BIG doe that I shot as a comparison to the sheer mass of this monster!
