LAST EDITED ON Oct-19-11 AT 10:17AM (MST)[p]I managed to stalk to within 40 yards of a decent 160 inch double main beam mule deer with my brother right beside me with a video camera. The shot looked good, but the buck was out of site within 50 yards. I suspected he did not make it far. We gave him a couple hours and went back to look for him, only to not find him. We finally found some blood and slowly followed it for about 400 yard in about 6 to 8 hours when we found that he had circled back to with in 150 yards of us and got down wind while we were giving him time to expire. That is when he took a 180 and ran the other way. The blood disappeared as I suspect he picked up the pace.
So we looked from 11 to dark the first day (Saturday), all day Sunday, then I had to skip Monday. I came back Tuesday hoping I would at least find birds. I had one more spot I wanted to hit and the wounded buck came running out of some brush! So I was back in the game.
I followed him and watched him bed down tight to a cliff with two other bucks, one being about 170". With the camera rolling, I stalked up over the top of him to within 20 yards. The bigger buck busted out of the brush not more than 10 yards away. I knew I was going to take whatever shot I could get on my wounded buck, so as he came running out from under the cliff, I drew back and shot hitting him in the back end where you don't really want an arrow.
Fortunately that slowed him down quite a bit and he bedded down about 100 yards away. I was able to put on yet another stalk and finally put him down with a double lung shot. He only made it 30 more yards and fell over.
So, the question I have is when I am ready to go public with this video, should I include the shot to the rear which gave me the opportunity to finish him? I know I did the right thing to take the shot as if I had not, who knows what would have happened. May have never found him again.
What do you guys think?
Here is a picture of the buck:
By the way, I found his last years shed only 50 yards from his final resting place.
So we looked from 11 to dark the first day (Saturday), all day Sunday, then I had to skip Monday. I came back Tuesday hoping I would at least find birds. I had one more spot I wanted to hit and the wounded buck came running out of some brush! So I was back in the game.
I followed him and watched him bed down tight to a cliff with two other bucks, one being about 170". With the camera rolling, I stalked up over the top of him to within 20 yards. The bigger buck busted out of the brush not more than 10 yards away. I knew I was going to take whatever shot I could get on my wounded buck, so as he came running out from under the cliff, I drew back and shot hitting him in the back end where you don't really want an arrow.
Fortunately that slowed him down quite a bit and he bedded down about 100 yards away. I was able to put on yet another stalk and finally put him down with a double lung shot. He only made it 30 more yards and fell over.
So, the question I have is when I am ready to go public with this video, should I include the shot to the rear which gave me the opportunity to finish him? I know I did the right thing to take the shot as if I had not, who knows what would have happened. May have never found him again.
What do you guys think?
Here is a picture of the buck:
By the way, I found his last years shed only 50 yards from his final resting place.
