My brother called me this weekend to tell me he found my deer. He was moving a stand on Friday and smelled it… followed his nose and found what was left of it about 20 yards from where he stopped looking. It’s wicked thick in there with catclaw briars and scrub, so I can understand how he missed it… but it sure bummed me out to find out he was so close.

The more exciting part of the call was to tell me that apparently a bear found the deer first, and a little more investigation suggests that this guy has been living there for quite some time. I doubt he’ll wait for me to come back at Christmas before he goes after this bruin, but it’s kinda cool to know he’s got at least one on his place. They’re coming back strong in that part of the state.

Anyway, mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am happy to know the deer isn’t wandering around with a festering wound, dying a slow death (although they’re really hardy animals and odds are a non-fatal wound would close and heal relatively well), but on the other hand I feel bad that he went to “waste”… although I guess the bear didn’t think it was a waste at all.

Holly, I guess that’s the reason most hunting shows rely on a videographer PLUS the hunter. It’s real tough to focus on both the hunt and shooting good footage. Gotta do one or the other.

All in all, it’s another lesson learned. I do think that deer will continue to run this year, and I fully expect my brother or one of his friends to kill it later this season. You can bet I’ll hear about it when it happens, too!

I like the part about videotaping too – last time I tried to videotape something in the duck blind (for you/JHO, as a matter of fact), ducks kept flying over. Sometimes recording and hunting don’t mix!

My bottom limb had slammed into a small 3″ protrusion which I hadn’t noticed in my zeal for harvesting that big brute!

Come to think of it, there were more than three incidents of the likes of that story and most of them I still laugh about.

I don’t get a lot of opportunity to practice shooting from an elevation, so it’s entirely possible that played into things. Even so, I may never know, but right now I’m 90% sure that arrow hit right where I aimed it. I was about 16 feet up, shooting a lasered 18 yards, which would have put the shot at 17 yards and a few inches. Not much of a difference in point of impact there with this fast, flat-shooting bow (yeah, I’ve been thinking on this a LOT).

That does lead me to the obvious problem, though. The angle was actually really mild. I knew this, I think, but just thought too hard about it and over-compensated. I felt pretty calm, but I think my logic got a little shaken. If I’d just used common sense, I’d have put that arrow right in the boiler room where it belonged instead of second-guessing myself and trying to get fancy.