This season has been full of disappointments so far, except for Steph's buck. That was great. I shot a doe and couldn't find her (low shot)... we saw a nice buck at about 60 yards, and now I had an opportunity and blew it. So here's what happened:
I finally got a SE wind and was going to hunt the spot we've gotten great buck pictures so far in the last two years' pre-ruts. This year, the deer (bucks included) have been traveling this logging road east to west in the mornings, and west to east in the evenings. Fairly simple. So, my best bet is to sneak in with an east wind (SE or NE works too) in the morning and wait to see what comes my way. So Monday morning finally brings that ESE wind I'm craving. I get set up and it's off and on misting. Loved it. I was hearing deer behind me in the brush and I heard a fawn bleat, too. At about 7:40am, I hear the unmistakable sound of a twig snap. I reach for my bow and I patiently wait to see what it is. It's a buck. It's a pretty nice buck. The light wasn't the best yet, so I couldn't get as specific as I'd like to. The buck came out at about 50 yards and got to about 37 and got behind the only two trees between me and him. I was standing and waiting.
My knees were weak and my breathing was chaotic. At some point in those two or three minutes he froze there, I figured out that he must've got my wind. While he was behind those trees I was able to range him at 35 yards.He turned to his left and it looked to me like he wasn't feelin' too good about the layout or the wind or something. I figured this was my only chance and as he stepped out from behind the tree I drew back and grunted at him. He froze and looked my way. I had to duck down a little bit because the one limb between us prevented me from a perfectly relaxed shot. I rolled off a shot and watched my Tracer zip through the morning mist and it sounded and looked like I buried it in him. He ran off and about 11 seconds after the 'hit' I heard a loud crash. I thought for sure I smoked him. Then I heard a deer blow several times. Was there two deer? Or had I missed?
I got down to look for my arrow and I found the Tracer blinking under the leaves - pretty cool. I pulled it out and as best I could tell there was zero blood on it, not one hair on it, it didn't smell, it looked like a clean miss. I had to have missed low. At this point I can feel the emotional scales tip towards the 'what in the world happened' side. I was dumbfounded. I still am to some extent. After my next sit there, I think I might look for the deer again. I might listen for birds and just watch video a few more times.
I'm not positive which deer it was, but my best guess from the few seconds I saw him, I would say he looked most like Splitbrow - a four year old that'll push 120 gross. Nothing fabulous, but would've been a great bow buck.
After the shot, I reviewed the footage on the camera, but I was zoomed way to far out to tell anything. I barely had time to turn the camera on the way it was. He came right in and there was no trees blocking me from him.
Anyway, after I waited about 25 minutes, I climbed down and checked the trail camera that was right there and got a picture of Scabby 10 out of velvet. He's a big bodied deer. He's either 4 or 5 this year. It would be great if he was 4, but I think he's 5.
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