Opening Day - unusual kill
10-03-2005, 11:40 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Tn
Posts: 286
Opening Day - unusual kill
Unusual kill,
This year we bought another 450 acres that sat next to our hunt club for the past few years. Since there were only 4 members of the hunt club we decided that we would all go in together and purchase this land. The land had backed up to our previous land of 203 acres. So needless to say we were very excited to get a chance to make the new addition. We have been scouting the land for the past 6 months for deer and turkey of all sizes to get a good read on where should put up the new stands. We decided on four main spots that we all liked and decided to draw straws for this years opening Bow season.
Over the past few months I have seen these two eight pointers that were very nice near my stand and one 10 point or better on more than one occasion. Finally the season had arrived and I was up at 3:30. Being as how the first break of light in my neck of the woods wouldn’t be until 5:30 I decided to go ahead and get ready and go wait at the barn on my partner to walk into the woods. He finally arrived at the 5:10 mark and we begin our walk. About 30 yards from my stand I think my mind is playing tricks on me as I see dancing shadows. This being the first year that I have been brave enough to get up in a stand I was already nervous. I have a prosthetic left leg and put on quite a bit of weight in the past 6 years. Though I have lost almost 60 pounds in the past year I am still right at the 290 mark. So that is always in my mind as well. As I get closer I hear the pitter patter of hoofs dancing on the leafs in the woods just behind my stand.
I finally get to my stand after the slow nervous walk and get situated. Finally around 7:20am I get some activity from the down wind. Its three doe and a little 4 point. I watch them eat berries and some acorns for about 10 mins as they make there way down to my stand. Knowing that I will have all season to take doe living in Tn. I decide to wait and see how the rest of the day goes. It finally roles around to 9am and nothing much has happened in the last hour and 40 mins. I get out of my stand and head back to the barn. Having to walk the long way so I don’t spook anything that may be near my buddies stand on the way back. Considering it is mostly up hill. As I am walking through the woods the barn is finally in view and I am ready to stop walking. All of a sudden I hear what sounds like sniffing. I stopped dead in my tracks to assure I wouldn’t scare whatever it may be off. I slowly turn my head to the right and no further than 13 or 14 yards was an unusual deer. This was not like the deer I had seen previously. This deer was an eight or nine point easily. But he was between me and another tree and had his left side to me so I could tell. All I knew was I had to be quite enough to pull back and shoot.
I stood in the same position for what seemed like an eternity. When finally the deer started to put its head down to eat once again. I pulled back and put the crimson talon broad head right behind the front leg a little higher than I expected. The deer jumps a country mile and runs off right towards the truck. I knew I had hit him pretty good though the arrow was nowhere to be found. I watched the deer run 30 yards in front of my truck and down into a creek bed near the barn. I was so excited and so ready to get to the truck I went ahead and walked back to the truck before I tracked the deer. “Bad Move” I should have known better than to start walking right after him instead of waiting, I was just in a state of shock I had never been in before. Tired, sore and happy all at once. Enough to make me do such a thing. I sat down in the truck for about an hour waiting on my friend to join me to look for the deer. Finally around 10:20 my buddy appears from the woods asking me if I had seen anything. I proceed to tell him the story and give him the play by play. As we walk over to the creek the blood is very strong yet I can’t seem to find the blood on the other side of the creek bank. By now it is getting close to 11:30 and we are both tired. I decide that I will go back to the house and get my older brother who is much better at tracking than I am and get the four wheeler so I won’t have to walk so much.
After tracking my brother down it is about 4:30 in the afternoon and I really want to get this deer before it spoils. So we begin the search right at 5:05. Sure enough, My brother was the answer. Where me and my friend were looking on the other side of the creek for blood, the deer walked down the creek and came back out on the same side only to fall down dead about 120 yards from the truck in a patch of tall grass. My brother saved the day and the meat was preserved. However, here is what makes this kill unusual. Remember me telling you that the deer had its left side to me? Well when we got to the deer this is what we saw. The left side was perfect but the right side was different. It was thick and sort of like a huge knot of antler on its head. It had two tines that dropped in the back, one so far that you can see that is what I am holding in the picture to hold the deer head up. It was 7 ½ inches long and had made a rub on the deer skin where every time the deer looked up it could only look so far without it digging into him. That I imagine is why the deer could not see me coming over the hill. He couldn’t get his head up enough to see me. Pretty neat!
Sorry the picture is so blurry, my brother can track’em but he is not very good at the photo opp’s ….LOL
The picture was so big I thought a link would be better!
http://www.junglenerdrecordings.com/TSD/deer/opening%20day%20020.jpg
This year we bought another 450 acres that sat next to our hunt club for the past few years. Since there were only 4 members of the hunt club we decided that we would all go in together and purchase this land. The land had backed up to our previous land of 203 acres. So needless to say we were very excited to get a chance to make the new addition. We have been scouting the land for the past 6 months for deer and turkey of all sizes to get a good read on where should put up the new stands. We decided on four main spots that we all liked and decided to draw straws for this years opening Bow season.
Over the past few months I have seen these two eight pointers that were very nice near my stand and one 10 point or better on more than one occasion. Finally the season had arrived and I was up at 3:30. Being as how the first break of light in my neck of the woods wouldn’t be until 5:30 I decided to go ahead and get ready and go wait at the barn on my partner to walk into the woods. He finally arrived at the 5:10 mark and we begin our walk. About 30 yards from my stand I think my mind is playing tricks on me as I see dancing shadows. This being the first year that I have been brave enough to get up in a stand I was already nervous. I have a prosthetic left leg and put on quite a bit of weight in the past 6 years. Though I have lost almost 60 pounds in the past year I am still right at the 290 mark. So that is always in my mind as well. As I get closer I hear the pitter patter of hoofs dancing on the leafs in the woods just behind my stand.
I finally get to my stand after the slow nervous walk and get situated. Finally around 7:20am I get some activity from the down wind. Its three doe and a little 4 point. I watch them eat berries and some acorns for about 10 mins as they make there way down to my stand. Knowing that I will have all season to take doe living in Tn. I decide to wait and see how the rest of the day goes. It finally roles around to 9am and nothing much has happened in the last hour and 40 mins. I get out of my stand and head back to the barn. Having to walk the long way so I don’t spook anything that may be near my buddies stand on the way back. Considering it is mostly up hill. As I am walking through the woods the barn is finally in view and I am ready to stop walking. All of a sudden I hear what sounds like sniffing. I stopped dead in my tracks to assure I wouldn’t scare whatever it may be off. I slowly turn my head to the right and no further than 13 or 14 yards was an unusual deer. This was not like the deer I had seen previously. This deer was an eight or nine point easily. But he was between me and another tree and had his left side to me so I could tell. All I knew was I had to be quite enough to pull back and shoot.
I stood in the same position for what seemed like an eternity. When finally the deer started to put its head down to eat once again. I pulled back and put the crimson talon broad head right behind the front leg a little higher than I expected. The deer jumps a country mile and runs off right towards the truck. I knew I had hit him pretty good though the arrow was nowhere to be found. I watched the deer run 30 yards in front of my truck and down into a creek bed near the barn. I was so excited and so ready to get to the truck I went ahead and walked back to the truck before I tracked the deer. “Bad Move” I should have known better than to start walking right after him instead of waiting, I was just in a state of shock I had never been in before. Tired, sore and happy all at once. Enough to make me do such a thing. I sat down in the truck for about an hour waiting on my friend to join me to look for the deer. Finally around 10:20 my buddy appears from the woods asking me if I had seen anything. I proceed to tell him the story and give him the play by play. As we walk over to the creek the blood is very strong yet I can’t seem to find the blood on the other side of the creek bank. By now it is getting close to 11:30 and we are both tired. I decide that I will go back to the house and get my older brother who is much better at tracking than I am and get the four wheeler so I won’t have to walk so much.
After tracking my brother down it is about 4:30 in the afternoon and I really want to get this deer before it spoils. So we begin the search right at 5:05. Sure enough, My brother was the answer. Where me and my friend were looking on the other side of the creek for blood, the deer walked down the creek and came back out on the same side only to fall down dead about 120 yards from the truck in a patch of tall grass. My brother saved the day and the meat was preserved. However, here is what makes this kill unusual. Remember me telling you that the deer had its left side to me? Well when we got to the deer this is what we saw. The left side was perfect but the right side was different. It was thick and sort of like a huge knot of antler on its head. It had two tines that dropped in the back, one so far that you can see that is what I am holding in the picture to hold the deer head up. It was 7 ½ inches long and had made a rub on the deer skin where every time the deer looked up it could only look so far without it digging into him. That I imagine is why the deer could not see me coming over the hill. He couldn’t get his head up enough to see me. Pretty neat!
Sorry the picture is so blurry, my brother can track’em but he is not very good at the photo opp’s ….LOL
The picture was so big I thought a link would be better!
http://www.junglenerdrecordings.com/TSD/deer/opening%20day%20020.jpg
10-03-2005, 01:03 PM
#7
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Tn
Posts: 286
RE: Opening Day - unusual kill
Thanks,
Sorry it was so long. But I had to give the details. I am still trying to figure out if it's a genetic defect or if the deer was hit by a car at some point and caused the horns to fuse to the deers head due to a crack skull or not. I don't know.
Sorry it was so long. But I had to give the details. I am still trying to figure out if it's a genetic defect or if the deer was hit by a car at some point and caused the horns to fuse to the deers head due to a crack skull or not. I don't know.
