R
RandallT
Guest
Well after hunting many years with my rifle and never seeing a deer worth shooting, I finally switched to archery hunting about four years ago. It didn't take long to become hooked. Over the past seasons I've been pretty selective maybe too selective but it all finally came together for me this past weekend. After hunting hard for 8 days , and after many close calls with some good bucks, lady luck gave me the break I'd been looking for. We first spotted this deer way down in a STEEP canyon with about 7 or 8 other bucks and some does, and we immediately could tell that he was on his way up to a saddle that the deer used to cross into some thick pines. So we hurried and got set up and waited for the buck. I couldn't believe how fast this buck covered ground, and I had my buddy in my ear telling me to hurry and draw because he was about to come into view. So as I sat there at full draw I saw antlers appear on the horizon. I didn't have time to range him so estimated him at 45 and let the old gold tip fly. I immediately herd the pop and knew that I had hit him. My buddy was behind me about 50 yards and I could hear him saying, "good shot", so that got me even more pumped. But the buck did not want to go down. He slowly made his way across the side hill. We thought he would collapse at any second but the deer he was with kept pushing him and wouldn't let him bed down. So one of my buddies said lets just back out and give him a little bit, which turned out to be the right thing to do. We headed back to camp and packed up, we had planned on leaving after that morning hunt. When we got back top the last spot we had seen him, we followed his trail into the pines, and he only made it about 100 yards past where we saw him last. I can't tell you guys how stoked I was to know that I had finally harvested a nice buck after so many close calls over the past years. He may not be the biggest buck out there, but he's a pig to me, and will look awesome on my wall. He ended up being 23" wide and scores 150".