Had a gorgeous 120 class come in to 14 yards and offered a perfect broadside. I felt like everything went off Perfectly and i watched him run till out of site 70 yards away. I got out of my stand expecting to walk a heavy blood trail to a dead dear about 80 yards away. Unfortunately when I got down there was no arrow and no blood. My guess is the combination of sharp angle (I was up about 27 feet) and no Pass through kept all the blood in the cavity. After a perfunctory look I backed out and am planning to go back for a grid search in the morning. What a HoRRIbLE feeling! [cry]
Update, Buck was recovered!!!
Wow, gang, thanks so much for all the interest and awesome support. Apologies for the delay in filling in the blanks here.
Last night was a long one and I could barely sleep at all, going through events over and over again mentally. The more I thought about the fact pattern the more confident I became that I would find the deer. Today would become a real emotional roller coaster.
I was out the door at 5:30, and waiting by 6:15 for a sunrise that was coming too slowly. I started off my grid searching with a good degree of confidence. I thought I had a good read on the direction of the buck and I knew I had put a good hit on him. The land I was searching was about a 15 acre wood lot replete with felled trees, swamp, and debris from the recently flooded north branch. I worked hard to maintain order and direction in my search, as it was alot of area for one person to cover thoroughly and there was a huge number of places where a wounded deer could hole up.
I grew more upbeat as I made my way closer to where I expected to find the deer. I expected to see the rack sticking up at any moment from behind a blow down. 7:00 am, 8:00 am, 9:00 am, the time ticked by and I was running out of area that remained unsearched. My heart was growing heavier as I exhausted the last piece of club property and adjacent park land. By 9:30 am I had covered all of the area In which I thought the deer was likely to be, but to no avail. I couldn't give up but from that point forward it would be pot luck, looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
The texts kept coming in from all my buds offering words of encouragement and help in searching but truth be told I was starting to accept the notion that I was not going to find this beautiful animal. It killed me that this beauty was going to be wasted.
At about 10:15 I decided to go to the point where I had last seen him run. From that point, Rather than go towards the direction I thought he had headed I decided to look in the complete opposite direction, which would have required the deer make an abrupt 180 degree change of direction. As I now walked through an overgrown power line cut 150 yards wide and a half mile long I was tapping out a text to Matty bemoaning my frustration and depression. As soon as I hit the send button I approached a spillway and caught a glimpse of something sticking up on the far side of a debris pile. My heart leaped as I hustled my fat ass forward and took in the sight of my prize. I let out a quick scream of joy and typed out a quick text of "holy f##k, I found him!". I couldn't believe it. The deer had run only 120 yards from where I'd hit him. Unfortunately for me, as soon as he was out of sight he had done an abrupt about face.
Foxes had gotten to the deer during the night and had done a bit of a job on the flank ne'er the entry wound. It was unfortunate that the meat was spoiled, but his headgear will live on for many moons hanging on the wall in my man cave or cabin upstate. All in all it was an awesome hunt followed up by an emotional roller coaster and, ultimately, a very fortunate recovery. Sometimes being lucky is better than being good!
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Update, Buck was recovered!!!
Wow, gang, thanks so much for all the interest and awesome support. Apologies for the delay in filling in the blanks here.
Last night was a long one and I could barely sleep at all, going through events over and over again mentally. The more I thought about the fact pattern the more confident I became that I would find the deer. Today would become a real emotional roller coaster.
I was out the door at 5:30, and waiting by 6:15 for a sunrise that was coming too slowly. I started off my grid searching with a good degree of confidence. I thought I had a good read on the direction of the buck and I knew I had put a good hit on him. The land I was searching was about a 15 acre wood lot replete with felled trees, swamp, and debris from the recently flooded north branch. I worked hard to maintain order and direction in my search, as it was alot of area for one person to cover thoroughly and there was a huge number of places where a wounded deer could hole up.
I grew more upbeat as I made my way closer to where I expected to find the deer. I expected to see the rack sticking up at any moment from behind a blow down. 7:00 am, 8:00 am, 9:00 am, the time ticked by and I was running out of area that remained unsearched. My heart was growing heavier as I exhausted the last piece of club property and adjacent park land. By 9:30 am I had covered all of the area In which I thought the deer was likely to be, but to no avail. I couldn't give up but from that point forward it would be pot luck, looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
The texts kept coming in from all my buds offering words of encouragement and help in searching but truth be told I was starting to accept the notion that I was not going to find this beautiful animal. It killed me that this beauty was going to be wasted.
At about 10:15 I decided to go to the point where I had last seen him run. From that point, Rather than go towards the direction I thought he had headed I decided to look in the complete opposite direction, which would have required the deer make an abrupt 180 degree change of direction. As I now walked through an overgrown power line cut 150 yards wide and a half mile long I was tapping out a text to Matty bemoaning my frustration and depression. As soon as I hit the send button I approached a spillway and caught a glimpse of something sticking up on the far side of a debris pile. My heart leaped as I hustled my fat ass forward and took in the sight of my prize. I let out a quick scream of joy and typed out a quick text of "holy f##k, I found him!". I couldn't believe it. The deer had run only 120 yards from where I'd hit him. Unfortunately for me, as soon as he was out of sight he had done an abrupt about face.
Foxes had gotten to the deer during the night and had done a bit of a job on the flank ne'er the entry wound. It was unfortunate that the meat was spoiled, but his headgear will live on for many moons hanging on the wall in my man cave or cabin upstate. All in all it was an awesome hunt followed up by an emotional roller coaster and, ultimately, a very fortunate recovery. Sometimes being lucky is better than being good!
