I was trying to squeeze in as many hunts in the last 10 days of the season as I could and I went out a couple more times since the last post without seeing anything even remotely intriguing.
Warmer temperatures had kind of put a cramp in the rut, but on Thursday the 27th colder temperatures blew in and the weather was calling for a hard frost. With the right wind out of the NW, it was time to try the red oak tree again where I put down 2-Prong.
My hunting buddy Clint had long since tagged out and I convinced him to climb the tree with me to run the video camera that morning. Good decision!
Just after it was light enough to shoot, we smashed the antlers together and we saw a big 8 point staring at us 75 yards before we even stopped rattling. He had us pegged, but it was the rut and we had a decoy out that might save the day.
Not the case. I never could really tell if he saw the decoy, but our grunts kept him just barely out of range for a couple minutes before he saw a little buck down the hill and there is no competing with the real thing. As he decided to head down over, I decided there was nothing to lose and snort-wheezed in a last ditch effort for him to come in range and check out the decoy. Bad decision!
It was almost an hour later before we saw another deer. It looked to be a buck carrying a wide set of antlers but he was over 200 yards away crossing the field in a direction that would take him straight away from us. I told Clint to hit the antlers real quick, but it was so still out that we decided to try a couple loud, aggressive grunts instead. Great decision!
My view was blocked due to a large pine tree trunk being in direct line with the path that the buck took, but Clint was giving me second-by-second commentary and he was scrambling to get the video camera rolling. By the urgency of his actions and words, I could tell everything was going to come together fast and before I could reach around and grab my bow the buck was closing to within 50 yards.
I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.
Wow, talk about coming in on a rope!
To fill in a couple of the parts you couldn’t see. When the buck crests the hill, you can see him make eye contact with the decoy and until it was too late, there was no doubt in his mind that the intruder had made those loud grunts.
He comes in downwind and when he hits the decoy’s scent stream I think he picked up our scent but it wasn’t enough to completely spook him. It probably didn’t help either that our “decoy” was actually a shot up 3-D archery target that looked like crap. But that is the reason he kind of skittered off to the left at the last second before the shot.
I was right to be confident with my shot because it took him straight through both lungs right on the crease and angled just a hair back; however, following the blood trail was nothing what I expected.
First off, the arrow was almost completely bare. Yea it had blood on it, but not soaked like most shots that pass through the chest cavity. Next, the deer made it out of the field when he was standing up on top after the shot 100 yards away. When we walked up on top an hour later, you could literally see the blood trail go the whole way across the 75 yard wide field contrasting with the bright white frost. It was another “blind man” blood trail.
At that point, I figured he would be just inside the other timber line and I would be able to spot him before even leaving the field. I was dead wrong, but fortunately not too wrong. The deer made it another 100 yards amazingly before coming to rest in the bottom of a creek ditch. With neither lung functioning, the deer had made it a legitimate 200 yards minimum. I can only assume that the extra adrenaline he had pulsing through his veins kept him running the extra 60-90 seconds he needed to travel so far. I counted that just on the video he was in sight for 60 seconds, let alone the time it took him to make the extra 100 yards out of the field.
The last surprise of the day came as I was approaching the deer. I realized I had shot another midget buck. He only weighed 138 pounds live weight! That is just bizarre considering some 3.5 year olds on the same property have pushed the scales barely over 200 pounds.
I’ll wrap up the post and the 2010-2011 Alabama deer hunting season with a couple photos we snapped before dragging him up the hill to the truck.
You can barely see the exit wound in this picture, but you can see it was a bit back of the crease and gives you an idea of the slight quartering angle on the shot.
Lastly, another picture showing off his impressive antler width – by far his most notable feature. He had a 18 7/8″ inside spread with 20″ main beams, but his lack of tine length didn’t quite allow him to break the 115″ mark.
4 days left in the season there was no way I was passing him up. Finally got a bow kill on the video camera. Shared 2 of my buck moments with my dad and my hunting buddy. What an end to another great Alabama hunting season!
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