Got off work at 2:30pm and headed down to one of my private land hunting spots where I have trail cam pics of some nice bucks. By the time I get down there it is already 3:15pm. Get my gear ready and start the slow trek to a spot that I had never hunted before but using the info from the members of The Hunting Beast is how I choose this location. The tree I choose was on the downwind side of a thick doe bedding area and about thirty yards off an old logging road that I know the bucks like to travel from across the road. There was also a small draw between my tree and the thick bedding area that I had seen does from across the road travel. Went 4 sticks high in the tree since that was where the only cover was(thanks to the in-laws for the 4th stick for Christmas last year
) and locked on my Lone Wolf Assault. This is my first year using a Lone Wolf treestand and it is definitely worth every penny paid for it! By the time I got all settled in it was 4:40pm. For the first 45 minutes or so of the hunt it was pretty quiet except for the occasional grey squirrel running through the dry leaves. Then around 5:30pm I caught movement in front of me and see that it is a deer working it's way to me. When it came pass some branches I saw that it was a buck and possibly a buck that I knew from my trail camera pics. Whether it was him or not I knew it was definitely a shooter(for me 3 1/2 or older). As I was watching him it looked like he was just going to turn and go into the thick bedding area. My first instinct was to grab my grunt call and try to draw him my way, but then I though I just need to be patient and see what he does...if he goes in then I would try my grunt call. I am glad that I decided on the patient thing(not normally me) because he turned back and headed my way. He then turned left along the edge of the thick trees and the top edge of the draw. I adjusted my camera to the opening that I though I would get a shot at him and attached my release to loop. As he reached the opening I drew back and something didn't feel right with my anchor points so I readjusted, found the buck through the peep sight, thought I picked the right spot and shot. Immediately I knew I had rushed the shot and when I saw my arrow go right through the stomach area that confirmed my though. The buck took off and then stopped about 50 yards from impact. I grabbed another arrow and then tried to grunt him back in to make a lethal shot. He looked back when I grunted but slowly walked away. I was furious at myself for making such a terrible shot. The buck walked another 20 yards and then bedded down which told me he was hurting pretty bad.
I called my brother and told him the senario and that I was going to wait until it got dark and sneak out quietly and we would have to come back the next day. I knew that waiting overnight would probably mean that I would only recover the rack the next day due to the high population of coyotes, which made me even more mad at myself for the bad shot because I don't just hunt for the rack but also my family depends on the meat. My brother told me that he was just finishing up milking and he would be over.
From where I was at I could just see part of the body of buck and then bits of his rack if he moved. After about 10 minutes he tried to get up but couldn't and that gave me a speck of hope that I may be able to recover him yet that night. A couple more minutes went by and then he threw himself over and in a few minutes all was still.
I was pumped and immediately called my brother to tell him. After that started texting everyone. When my brother got there and we walked up to the buck I realized that I had just killed the buck that we called Pickett Fence. In fact the neighbor guy had just passed him up that same morning because he was pretty much only after a buck that we call Splitz.
Here is a trail cam pic of Pickett Fence
Here is Pickett Fence with my hands wrapped around his antlers
I will add the video once I get it downloaded on my computer.
