Sorry to keep you waiting Yogie, but I just got home a little before dark this evening. I’m pleased to report that the new bow worked perfectly. I had 5 days to connect with a legal buck. The area that we hunt is a 3 point (on one side) area. Grumpy didn’t tell me that they had the worst winter in about 20 years and had a tremendous winter kill in his back yard. I was hunting about 20 miles from Bedford where Grumpy resides. Beautiful area.
When we arrived, Kenny, the owner of the farm said that the deer population was down and they hadn’t been seeing many deer out in the fields, however it seemed that there was a better buck doe ratio than they have had in the past. He did mention that there was a 4 x spike (half of a 8 pt. rack on one side and a spike on the other side) that he had seen on the farm and said that if we had a chance to take it, he'd like to get it out of the gene pool. When he said that the deer numbers were low, I thought oh great, there won’t be any deer here either. The deer population back home were real low due to Blue Tongue disease.
I have a spot that I found several years ago that has been pretty productive for me in the past and started out by placing my stand there. The first morning I saw 4 bucks all small and too far away anyhow. That evening I saw a couple of does but that’s it. Day two was better. About 7:00 AM I had a doe walk past me at about 8 yards. A small 7 point buck followed about 40 yards behind her. He followed her and stopped in front of my stand at 8 yards. I elected not to shoot him and let him walk. As he walked out of sight, I kicked myself for passing him up but that is half the fun of bow hunting.
About 1 hour after passing on the 7 pt. a better 6 point came into view. Kenny prefers us to only shoot 8 point of better and when I looked at the 6 point, I looked at one side (the side with 4 points) and only had a couple of seconds to get ready. When the 7 pt. came by, I had time to count his points and that is why I didn’t shoot it. I was sure that the 6 pt. was a 8 pt. and as it passed by my stand I drew my Robertson recurve and drilled him with a shot about 2 inches further forward than I had hoped but the arrow penetrated the shoulder blade taking out both lungs and creating a exit wound in the opposite arm pit. I watched him run about 70 yards and go down.
I was the only bowhunter in camp, the others used crossbows. I can’t believe anyone would choose to use one of those over a bow. I have shot their crossbows and helped carry those things through the woods for them from time to time. Oh well, to each his own. One of the others got a shot and missed (he said he thinks the arrow, or bolt as they‘re called, came out of the track as he maneuvered the crossbow into position) while the others failed to get a shot opportunity. Anyway, it was a great trip spent with great friends and resulted with meat in the freezer.
