N
Nelly
Guest
Wow I have heard many stories this deer season a couple of those stories made me want to tell you all my long tell of getting my first buck. Some of the stories have been of defeat and some have been of accomplishment and others have been almost. I can only tell you what I have felt hunting my self and my story (that is if anyone cares). This year was the first in my life that I harvested a mule deer and it was a great experience! Anyways to make a long story short I'm set up right next to this fence and the deer start jumping it about 150 yards in front of me and I see a nice forky getting ready to jump so as soon as he hit's my side of the fence and I have him in my cross hairs I pull the trigger. "OK now looking back I can see a million things I did wrong and I have learned from this hunt I vowel to not make the same mistakes twice". So back to the hunt, so as soon as he hit's the ground I pull the trigger and I know it is a hit but I thought he was jumping when I hit him (just what I was thinking) so I run up to the spot and find blood on the sage brush and I keep looking I find a bloody piece of bone. At this time I call over my buddy to come help me find this buck since he is not laying here dead. I tell my buddy my findings and he pulls the bloody sage brush and says ?this is old? and so I show him the bone and he picks it up rubbing it in his fingers (which now have blood on them from the bone) and he then says that the bone must be from a coyote kill. LOL
So I tell him we need to start tracking this deer, seeing how the sun is going to start to set. So he says he will chase after the deer herd and let me know if he finds anything (at this point I'm so mad he won't help me track this deer, there is a good blood trail that I have found at first) but he feels he needs to follow the deer and find what he can. So I start following this blood trail and at the beginning there are big spots of blood every few feet but as I go along the big spots fade an after 30 yards all I can find are drops of blood and yes I'm on my hands and knees now looking and leaving a piece of clothing at the last spot I find blood. So I get even more mad and call my buddy back, now that I'm only a 100 YARDS from the spot I hit the deer. And tell him I really need his help, I explain too him we should follow the blood and then go from there. Well again a long story short my buddy did his thing I did mine and THANK GOODNESS he found a big spot of blood about 300 yards from the first spot, so I went and looked at it and ?deep down I knew I hit this deer good, BUT not good enough? now as were looking at this spot it is dark and we decided to call it a night. This to me is the first time I have ever hit a mule deer and also this is the first time I lost an animal tracking it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now as I write this I know the out come but I still get sick to my stomach ?thinking? of losing a game animal I know this is something that happens when hunting but it still bothers me to think of how many animals are lost out there each year from something like this. So the next day which was our last day hunting we went to the same hill side and deep down I was hoping to find this wounded buck but after 3 hours of glassing a couple hundred deer I could not find any limping or any hurt deer. So for some reason all the deer start going the opposite way of me and my buddy towards the hills. SO I tell him to hang tight and I will try and cut the deer off. SO after running 75 yards out of the corner of my eye I see a deer get up out of this tall brush and he start to limp badly. I knew then this was the buck I had hit yesterday, but as he was running I didn't fell comfortable with an off hand shot at 200 yards so I though as bad as he is limping I will run up another 50 yards and take the shot. Well in all the excitement by the time I got to where I felt comfortable all the deer bunched up, I pull up my gun on them and all I can find is one little spike. SO then I start to think I knew I didn't shot a spike the other day and I didn't want to shoot him and have this other buck hurt also so there I was just looking threw my scope trying to make this spike limp badly enough to be the buck from the other day. Yep you're right I finally pulled my gun down and could not take the shot. I could not shoot this buck with out being sure. SO next thing I know I see this doe caught in the fence so I walk down to her and pull her leg out of the fence (feeling horrible, knowing I caused it) then as I'm walking back I tell my buddy are hunt is over I put my gun in the truck and I tell him to head my way. Sitting at the truck I feel bad cause it has been 7 years and I have yet to bring home a deer and my family could use it this year so I start to walk out to my buddy to tell him sorry for not killing the spike, We meet up I tell him what happened and what I was feeling as were walking back to the truck about 20 yards from the truck we stop and he say?s ?so this is it? and I say ?yes? just then the buck jumps up 50 yards from us running/limping as I'm running to the truck for my gun I tell my buddy to finish him on his second shot we thought he connected so we went out in the field looking for this buck I ended up finding him and putting him down, my buddy never connected the buck just laid down and tried to hide. Well I finally got my own buck he is just a little forky but I'm still proud. So people can think what they want I did the best I could with what I had to work with and even if I never harvested this buck I would have felt horrible the rest of my life?? There may come a time that I hit a deer or I see someone hit a deer and not recover it, not in all cases is it OK but there are some that people do the best of there ability to make it right and that is all we can ask for. PLEASE DO WHAT IS RIGHT TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITYS, AND MAYBE THEN WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT THE RIGHT THING HAS BEEN DONE!!!!!
CW
So I tell him we need to start tracking this deer, seeing how the sun is going to start to set. So he says he will chase after the deer herd and let me know if he finds anything (at this point I'm so mad he won't help me track this deer, there is a good blood trail that I have found at first) but he feels he needs to follow the deer and find what he can. So I start following this blood trail and at the beginning there are big spots of blood every few feet but as I go along the big spots fade an after 30 yards all I can find are drops of blood and yes I'm on my hands and knees now looking and leaving a piece of clothing at the last spot I find blood. So I get even more mad and call my buddy back, now that I'm only a 100 YARDS from the spot I hit the deer. And tell him I really need his help, I explain too him we should follow the blood and then go from there. Well again a long story short my buddy did his thing I did mine and THANK GOODNESS he found a big spot of blood about 300 yards from the first spot, so I went and looked at it and ?deep down I knew I hit this deer good, BUT not good enough? now as were looking at this spot it is dark and we decided to call it a night. This to me is the first time I have ever hit a mule deer and also this is the first time I lost an animal tracking it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now as I write this I know the out come but I still get sick to my stomach ?thinking? of losing a game animal I know this is something that happens when hunting but it still bothers me to think of how many animals are lost out there each year from something like this. So the next day which was our last day hunting we went to the same hill side and deep down I was hoping to find this wounded buck but after 3 hours of glassing a couple hundred deer I could not find any limping or any hurt deer. So for some reason all the deer start going the opposite way of me and my buddy towards the hills. SO I tell him to hang tight and I will try and cut the deer off. SO after running 75 yards out of the corner of my eye I see a deer get up out of this tall brush and he start to limp badly. I knew then this was the buck I had hit yesterday, but as he was running I didn't fell comfortable with an off hand shot at 200 yards so I though as bad as he is limping I will run up another 50 yards and take the shot. Well in all the excitement by the time I got to where I felt comfortable all the deer bunched up, I pull up my gun on them and all I can find is one little spike. SO then I start to think I knew I didn't shot a spike the other day and I didn't want to shoot him and have this other buck hurt also so there I was just looking threw my scope trying to make this spike limp badly enough to be the buck from the other day. Yep you're right I finally pulled my gun down and could not take the shot. I could not shoot this buck with out being sure. SO next thing I know I see this doe caught in the fence so I walk down to her and pull her leg out of the fence (feeling horrible, knowing I caused it) then as I'm walking back I tell my buddy are hunt is over I put my gun in the truck and I tell him to head my way. Sitting at the truck I feel bad cause it has been 7 years and I have yet to bring home a deer and my family could use it this year so I start to walk out to my buddy to tell him sorry for not killing the spike, We meet up I tell him what happened and what I was feeling as were walking back to the truck about 20 yards from the truck we stop and he say?s ?so this is it? and I say ?yes? just then the buck jumps up 50 yards from us running/limping as I'm running to the truck for my gun I tell my buddy to finish him on his second shot we thought he connected so we went out in the field looking for this buck I ended up finding him and putting him down, my buddy never connected the buck just laid down and tried to hide. Well I finally got my own buck he is just a little forky but I'm still proud. So people can think what they want I did the best I could with what I had to work with and even if I never harvested this buck I would have felt horrible the rest of my life?? There may come a time that I hit a deer or I see someone hit a deer and not recover it, not in all cases is it OK but there are some that people do the best of there ability to make it right and that is all we can ask for. PLEASE DO WHAT IS RIGHT TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITYS, AND MAYBE THEN WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT THE RIGHT THING HAS BEEN DONE!!!!!
CW
