As luck would have it...(My buddy says I have a horse shoe stuck up my a$$) Sunday was my first night to hunt. We had been seeing 2 shooters regularly but they were always in the camera at night. This past week, they started showing up a little earlier. I got to the tree about 3:00 and settled in for a long afternoon. It had been a long stressful week with Jonny breaking his back and having surgery, and us watching his son (always fun) and a nice afternoon in the tree would be welcome therapy. I saw nothing for about 3-1/2 hours and my back was getting sore from the small tree. For some reason, I decided to stand up and hunt the remaining 45 minutes at the ready position should anything come in. I was in a tree that still had quite a few of its leaves on and it was hard to see too far away. Shortly after I stood up, I noticed a big doe walking down a bean field that had a patch of grass down a swail to prevent erosion. The grass was tall and it was luck that I even saw her. As she came up the trail, 6 more does and fawns followed. I was mesmerized watching them and didn't even get my bow in my hand. Suddenly as I was watching them, I heard the loudest grunt I have ever heard from on the other side of the tree! I couldn't see what made the noise, but my heart was pounding! Soon after that, I saw motion and it was a 14 point we had trail camera pictures of at 15 yards. Great, I thought...I don't even have my bow in my hand. I turned around slowly and picked up the Hoyt Vectrix XL (dinosaur, but accurate) and tried to put the sling around my hand. It wasn't cooperating and the arrow shook around on the shelf making some noise. Ne never looked up and started walking away. I came to full draw, grunted and he stopped at 20 yards. I aimed towards the back of the rib cage focusing on the back of the far shoulder and pulled the trigger. Whack! I only got about 8" of penetration and must have hit the shoulder perfectly square. The buck took off tail down and trotted away. Suddeny he turned on the nitrous and really took off. At that time he was just out of my sight with the leaves in the way. I gathered up my gear, put my backpack on and started to perpare for the climb down. When I bent over I noticed something in the bean field so I picked up the binoculars and scoped it out. There he was 100 yards away piled up. The body was so big it actually mad the rack look small on the hoof. He was probably in the 230# live weigth area. The rack quick green scored 168 typical gros but has about 12"-15" of deductions. 24" main beams and about 17 inch spread.
This deer should really be Zachs. He has hunted it for a few weeks and was putting their pattern together. I am a casual hunter when it comes to deer, and would have been happy with a managment buck to keep the heard strong for the future. But when this bruiser walked up I just went into auto mode and all the years of shooting came back to muscle memory and got the job done. I don't even remember drawing the bow or centering the peep!
Hopefully Z can get the bigger bodied 8 point and then I wont feel too bad all season.
He was with me on an elk hunt when on the first day we were just playing around and I called in a bull and shot it just 4 hours into a 9 day hunt. I'd rather be lucky than good I guess. And I think I'll keep that horse shoe right where its at!
Thanks Zach!
Vince
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