Eikenhout : Roofing, Siding and Windows

Deer Hunting Success

This firearm season is my third official year of hunting the famed whitetail deer of Michigan.  Three years ago on my first opening morning out I bagged a seven pointer and then a nice doe the next trip.  I was hooked.  But even I, a newbie, in the hunting rank and file had a growing thirst to try and conquer a deer armed only with a bow and arrow.

Last year I spent time in October seeing many deer but not being in a place where I could get my arrow on the target.  And then came this year. . .

It was the morning of November 6th.  It was the perfect storm for chasing dear.  The wind was still, the temperature was in the upper 20’s and an inch of snow had fallen overnight lining my Manistee hunting grounds.

Maybe it is the Daniel Boone in me, the love of the outdoors, or some good advice from my son in law, but I pulled out my Buck Grunt call and started making the bucks a little crazy.  After only my second call I heard some noise.  I turned to see a nice sized Buck with a pretty nice rack.

I had him.  He was curious.  And as he walked closer I was able to see that it was at least an 8 point and quite possibly a 10 pointer.  He circled around 30-40 yards in front of me to get down wind for a scent check.  Then he slowly made his approach walking directly at me.

He made one fatal mistake.  When he was 20 yards away he made a right hand turn.  My ten point crossbow was positioned and slowly released the arrow as a direct hit on my target, bullseye!  At this point words cannot describe what just happened.  Only those who have lived this moment understand what I was feeling.

As I waited in my tree stand, I watched the deer run off and out of sight.  After about an hour I climbed down the tree and went to the spot where the deer was hit  There was my arrow, stuck in the ground in the middle of a blood spot the size of a paper plate.  “Great shot!”  I said to myself.

Hunting alone that morning I grabbed my cell phone to call my brother in law for advice on how long I should wait before I started tracking him.  No answer, so I started tracking.  I found a blood trail that looked like a red paint can had been punctured and was leaking its contents.  Unbelievable.

After tracking this massive blood spill for over 200 yards, I couldn’t believe that this deer had any blood left.  I kept moving and discovered a couple of spots where it had fallen down.  It looked like it had bled out.  I was thinking that it couldn’t be far away now, but then the blood stopped.  I circled around trying to find blood, but nothing.

I called in for support, and a friend and his wife met me to help in the search.  We found the trail which led us into a bog type area.  When we got half way into the bog, the deer surprisingly jumped up and ran away. I clearly saw him warning the others of danger as I watched his big white flag framed by his huge rack disappear in the woods.

With the blood trail disappearing and the snow melting, we figured he had to be down somewhere.  Our tracking skills had been tested but we won out as 150 yards away we found him standing, wobbly legs, staring at us until he finally laid down.  He was done.  A successful hunt.

We began reliving the hunt for about 10 minutes with fun conversation and laughter as we stood over our spoils.  In a split second without warning, the deer jumped up and ran through a stand of pines and out of sight again.  I have to admit that a few “expletives” might have crossed my lips as I witnessed his Rambo like persistence.

But after 150 more yards of searching the pursuit was finished.  He wasn’t getting up this time.  With another hour of dragging him back to my stand and the two track where I could drive in and get him out of the woods, I completed the hunt.

Five and one half hours after I let the arrow go, he was finally hanging on the pole.  Not a huge deer, maybe 160 pounds with a 10 point rack measuring 17 1/2” on the outside spread, but his fight made it a first time bow experience that I will never forget.