Tom2008

I'm back early from the weekend and I have some great news. I got out of school at 1:00 P.M. on friday and hit the road to my cabin in Kettle River, MN by 2:30. I arrive at my cabin at 4:00 P.M. and park the truck behind the cabin and get all my Scent-Lok wear on. I head out to my stand not knowing I have a follower. I get up in my stand and I look around and I see the neighbor's dog sitting 10 feet from my stand. The dog followed me to my stand. I angrly get down and bring him back home and chain him up. Instead of heading out right away I shoot my bow for about an hour to relieve stress. Around 5:30 P.M. I decide it is time for me to head to a new spot. I decided to hunt my 10 acre clover field on the ground. I made a blind out of pine tree branches. I get ready and hit my Primos "Original Can" three times and then do three quick grunts. I wait 15 minutes and do the same sequence. I look across the field where the deer usually come out and there is a deer. She comes out and starts heading right in my direction. She was slight quartering towards me and it looked like she was about to run back into the woods. I decide to take the shot and now I regret it. I watched the arrow sink into to her hind quarter and a loud crack followed. She ran off into the woods stopped and then was gone. I couldn't believe that I just made a really bad shot on a deer. I felt sick, but I waited two hours and got some help from Dave. We followed a good blood trail for about 200 yards. Then we shine our flash lights ahead and there is a glow of what we think are eyes. Dave tells me to run back and get some tape so we can mark where we last seen her. I hurry back and cut straight to where my property trail is. I get the tape and head back to where Dave last was. I get there and he is not there and I yell for him with no answer. I back track two more times to make sure I was going in the right direction. About this time I'm starting to worry a little bit and go to my neighbors to get some help. We grab his 4 wheeler and before we got back to my driveway we see Dave walking back. He says that he moved on because what we though were eyes were property markers. He followed the blood trail for atleast 1/2 a mile and he kept finding less and less blood. The last spot he found blood had 1 drop within 10 feet of another. We decided that this deer was long gone and went back exhausted.
That night I fell asleep at 11:00 and woke up again at 2:30 in the morning. I couldn't fall back asleep, because all I could think about was that shot. It kept replaying in my mind over and over again and I kept asking myself why I took the shot. I finally fell asleep again at 4:30 and woke up at 5:45. I decide to throw my Scent-Lok on and head back to the blind and see what happens. I walk to my blind and sit in the darkness for 30 minutes motionless. At 6:30 I hit the bleat can and grunt call three times each and waited. About 10 minutes go by and I look into the field and I think I see a deer. The fog only allowed me to see about 60 yards so the deer was a black blur at the time. Then I see another figure and this one is a bit smaller. It gets a little lighter out and the fog lifts a little more and I can now for sure tell there were two deer in my field and they were grazing right to me. I get ready and I see the doe turn broadside at what I thought was 40 yards. I decide not to take the shot and see if she'll come in closer. She closes the distance fast and before I know it she is at 20 yards. I mouth bleat at her to stop her and put the pin on her shoulder and release. I hear a loud crack and the deer hits the ground and just groans. I couldn't believe it she just flat out dropped on the spot. The fawn just stares and has no clue what just happened. The fawn hangs around for about minutes and then passes behind me through the woods at 10 yards. I look back at my doe and the arrow sticking out her neck. I'm guessing my string hit my sleeve causing the arrow to fly and hit a different spot then I aimed. I did not try to hit her there, but its what happened. She died within in 5 minutes of the hit and that was that. This is my fourth season of bow hunting and I finally connected a deer. The doe weighed in at 110 lbs dress and she is also my first whitetail doe.
This is a picture of the blind that I made.

I took a picture of the view from the blind too.

Finally here is the picture of the gorgeous doe I took this morning at 6:45 A.M.

Rob/PA Bowyer

Congratulations on the doe...

Question, ya'll never looked farther than your buddy stopped?

Two doe, two bad shots with one lucky recovery. Practice, practice, practice and good luck.

Tom2008

Yes we did and blood was not found. My second shot would of been fine other than my sleeve being in the way. The second shot was not bad just didn't hit where I was aiming because of my clothing. I admit the first one was not a good though.

Sliverflicker

Congrats on your first!

Gut Check

Congrats on your first. As Rob said, you should have tried to recover the first animal though. Definately before harvesting another the next morning.We all make bad shots, but we owe it to the deer, or any animal for that matter, to give 110% in trying to recover and put the wounded down. A couple of hours isn't adequate. Take a look around at some threads and look at the efforts hunters put into recovering the animals.

Congrats again and just learn from your mistakes.

Tom2008

We did look until we couldn't anymore. There was not enough blood to follow anymore. I forgot to add this part, but we looked until 11:00 that night and then it rained over night and a mist held up all night. Like I said Dave was following the blood trail until there was almost no more blood. He found one drop 10 feet apart from each other continuously. We tracked the deer for 1/2 a mile andduring that entire time she never bedded down.You can't say that we did not try hard enough to look for that deer. We put our all into trying to find that deer. I'm not one to just give up on an animal that I hit, but there is nothing we could do about this one. I'm not a first year hunter I know better than to just give up, but sometimes you are left with no other option.

MN/Kyle

congrats on your first deer.

One question for you, and i think its a fair one. If instead of being a doe, the first one you shot, lets say it was a nice buck. Would you have gone about tracking it the same? Or would you still be out looking, with more people etc.

BowHuntingFool

Congrats on your first kill! Nice big Doe!!!!!!! I personally don't think a couple of hours in the dark looking for a deer is enough effort! You should of at least looked when it was light out! Thats just my opinion! Good luck and keep learning, I know I do!

Tom2008

I would have done it the same, because from the situation that I was in it was the only option. I do not think I have done a bad job or done anything wrong in that matter. I only could of had3 people help me look and and Dave is one of the most expierience bow hunters that I know and he agreed that there is nothing else that we could of done. I don't mess around with life and would never class one deer more important than another. I feel like I'm being accused for murder. I don't see how some of you can criticize how I dealt with the situation when none of you were there.

MN/Kyle

Are you serious? First off, I said congrats. Secondly, I asked a simple question. I was curious, and now I know. Not accusing anyone of murder, no one likes to loose a deer, but unfourtunetly it happens. We learn from our mistakes.