With only a few minutes of shooting light left the four deer slipped into the field. The largest one was the last to enter and I was fairly certain it was a doe. As they trotted across the backside of the field I tried to get a good visual confirmation that it was truly antler free. It didn’t take me long to do that but they were moving away from me so I grunted to stop her and I fired. The doe spun around and ran back the way she came flagging all the way making me think I may have missed her.
I got down out of the stand and crossed the field to see if I could pick up her trail. It was dark by the time I got there and with my flashlight I couldn’t find any sign of a hit. I spent about an hour going all the way back across the field searching for any sign of a hit to no avail.
That night I played that shot through my head a number of times wondering what I did to miss. I could see any reason for me to miss other than I just choked. It was pretty cool that night so I knew in the morning I could look some more and still recover the deer if my shot had been on the mark.
The next morning I spent most of my time while sitting in my stand trying to recall exactly where the deer was standing and marking the spot. I got down out of the stand and went back across the field to look. It didn’t take me long to realize I had been in the wrong spot the night before and I almost immediately found where my bullet had gone into the ground. Only a few yards in front of that spot I found hair confirming I had hit her. Not far from that I found a small amount of blood so I began the task of trailing her. Across the field I never found a lot of blood and much of the trailing was done on my hands and knees and was pretty slow going. Once I found where she entered the woods the blood trail became more visible and a lot more blood.
What looked like would be a cake walk of a blood trail from the woods on took another strange turn when I got to an area where a flock of turkeys had gone through earlier that morning. The blood trail was lost by the turkeys scratching looking for acorns and other food. Luckily I was able to find some trees that had blood on their trunks that gave me the travel direction and eventually lead me back to a section of woods the turkeys hadn’t been and it was only a short distance after that I found the doe.
She had climbed under a blow down making her virtually invisible. She was just a tad bit smaller than the other doe I shot earlier. The cool weather overnight kept the meat fresh. She’ll provide a lot of healthy meals over the next few months.
I guess the lesson I learned, or at least had reinforced, was to persevere on the track no matter what gets thrown at you. I could of called it after Friday’s search and I found nothing but I had to go back the next day just to be sure. The skimpy blood sign in the field was hard to follow and some might of thought it was so scarce that it was only a superficial wound rather than a fatal wound. The turkeys while not the first time they have messed me up while on a trail I was able to stay on the track and recover the deer.
So this is deer # 3 for the season.
