With the SE wind I decided to try to sneak onto the hill bucks seem to like to bed on at the north end of a small hayfield. I have picked up 3 different sheds there in the last 8 years and more than once I’ve seen bucks headed in that direction at dawn. The hill offers great visibility from high vantage points with thick mountain laurel escape cover to the N on the downhill slope that drops into a nature preserve.
Using my GPS in the dark, I was able to locate a spot 100 yards downwind of the highest point, 50 yards from a massive shed I found last spring, and 70 yards from where I sat just out of the action a year ago. Downhill from me there was a long-forgotten ¼ acre paddock framed by stonewalls with barways through both the north and south walls. A heavy trail ran straight through.
I was able to get totally settled just before it got light enough to see clearly, which was a little later than I’d planned. A few minutes into shooting light a doe appeared uphill to the east about 50 yards away. She fed on acorns for about 30 minutes, but I was never tempted to shoot- I hadn’t snuck all the way into this high-stakes spot to shoot a doe. She eventually made her way north of my position where she must have caught my scent, because she suddenly went on red alert and stiff-legged it down towards the mountain laurel to way to the north.
A little before 8 I caught movement below me to the northwest. The legs of a deer came into focus below the canopy and as the deer continued in my direction I could see it was a nice 8 point buck. He paused momentarily before passing through the north barway into the stone wall paddock. At a slow walk he angled closer to my position. At 25 yards he walked behind a small sapling that blocked his view and I drew my bow. Directly downhill to my west, I needed him to take one more step and he would be in the open, but he locked up as if he smelled something. He immediately turned around and started to stalk away in the manner that deer do when they know something is wrong and are going to leave but are not necessarily startled. I knew I had to make up my mind fast so I put it right behind his shoulder and let the string drop. He took another step as the arrow flew and a solid “thunk” confirmed a hit. He ran back through the barway in the direction that he came from. From what I could see the arrow struck farther back than I intended but he was quartering away hard, so I hoped the arrow made its way into the vitals. He paused about 70 yards away but I lost sight of him in the dense canopy. A few moments later I saw two bucks in the same area walking away to the west. Shortly after I thought I heard a crash near the last place I saw my buck go but I wasn’t sure.
Because of the questionable hit, I decided to wait two hours before trying to find him. After thirty minutes I talked myself into at least looking for the arrow. While on the ground in the vicinity of where I shot the buck a doe suddenly appeared near the north barway, which she walked through right in my direction. Soon she was ten yards away, but my bow was 20 feet up a tree and I wouldn’t be inclined to shoot not knowing the outcome of the buck. After a few moments she spotted me and bounded away to the south and then stomped around and blew at me for ten minutes or so at about 50 yards. In that time period a deer jumped up to the northwest and flagged away, presumably one of the other bucks I’d seen after I shot mine (and hopefully not the one I shot).
Not being able to locate the arrow or blood in the immediate area of where the buck was when I shot, I decided to go back up the tree and finish my wait. Not long after getting strapped back into my harness, another doe appeared at the barway and walked to the spot where the buck was at the shot. Again I held off because of my uncertainty with the buck. I noticed she did a lot of sniffing behind a fallen log just beyond the shot site.
Finally the two hours had passed and I went right to the log where the doe had been sniffing. Sure enough, my arrow was laying there. Covered in blood, the arrow also had the smell of a gut shot, but the blood made me feel more confident that the arrow had found vitals. I found first blood just on the other side of the barway. The trail was spotty and hard to follow but within 30 yards I found a significant puddle of blood. From there the blood continued downhill to the north and into the thick mountain laurel. Several times the trail switched directions, but when I started seeing a lot of scuffed up leaves, I became confident that he was close. Sure enough, while looking for the next drop of blood I spotted him 20 yards below me.
The arrow entered just above the flank and exited right behind the elbow on the opposite side. Upon examining his rack I recognized him as the nice buck I had on a trail camera over half a mile away two evenings before. Although a nice buck I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit disappointed that he was a 3 year old and not a year or so older, but the hunt was exciting and it was very satisfying to combine prior knowledge with a little intuition and a lot of luck, resulting in catching a buck coming back to his bed.
In the satellite photo you can faintly see the outlines of stonewalls that were built more than a century ago (maybe 2 or 3) and you should be able to make out the small "paddock" I described.
P.S. Although he came from downwind, I had a significant altitude advantage, so I am guessing my scent was blowing straight over the top of him.
