Opening day buck

3rcalloway

Six Pointer
I was lucky enough to harvest this guy on my first hunt of the year on the evening of opening day. He came out with many other bucks, but never came closer than 60 yards. I was very confident with a 60 yard shot, so as it started to get dark and looked like the bucks were about to move on, I decided to take the shot. he was slightly quartering away at 60 yards, so I wanted my shot 3-4 inches behind the front shoulder. Everything felt good all the way through the release and hearing the arrow hit. ended up hitting him about 6 inches behind his front shoulder. to my amazement, the arrow did not pass through, but still looked like it got the liver and lungs. I decided to wait a few hours before tracking. big thanks to derekorr1986 for coming out on the late night to help me track him. we found the blood trail entering an area of thick woods, heading straight towards a small creek. we came to a standstill at the creek for atleast 30 minutes. he had run up towards the creek, crossed it, did a 100degree turn and started running down the creek, crossing back and forth over it multiple times. we tracked him down the creek line for about 100 yards in some terribly thick woods, until we had lost the blood trail. we decided to back out at 2am after looking all over. the last thing I saw was busted branches overhanging the small creek(2ft wide by 6in deep). so I marked it and decided to come back during daylight. the next morning, my dad and I went back to continue the search. by the time I got there, my dad had already searched every inch of dry land through those woods. I had on my rubber boots and went walking down the creek from the last sign of blood. my dad went and put on a pair of waders. we walked to where the creek dumped out into the main swamp, he went left, I went right. about 30 minutes later, I hear my dad yelling he had found him! the buck had ran his last 40 yards straight down the creek and was heading for deep water in the swamp. He was tangled in some briars right past the mouth of the creek. we had both walked within 10 feet of him multiple times. it took my dad putting on waders and wading out into the open swamp to be able to see him. I am truly blessed and would not have recovered this buck without the help from derekorr1986 and my dad. big thanks to them!
 

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dpc

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
congrats! glad you found him. Is that a snake laying over the deer in the jeep pic?
 
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aya28ga

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Congrats on the nice buck, and good job on sticking with the tracking.

Where does the snake come in to the story?
 
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NCHNTR

Old Mossy Horns
Very nice archery buck.
So in all the tracking you guys did he only went 150 yds?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Blackwater

Twelve Pointer
Nice buck and way to stick with the search. It always amazed me how often a wounded deer will head for water. I've found them lying with their head in the water to losing several in the swamp that just got too deep to be detectable. My Dad and I watched one go into a slough after he shot it and it sunk like a rock in 8' of water but we cut a pole and started poking around and it popped up like a cork for the retrieve.
 
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