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Stoke the Fire!

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jamie:
sitting in the stand. typically i dont last long in the stand and i'll go stalking. this day i told myself to just stay in the stand. 3 hrs later about to lose my mind from boredom and trying not to fling all my arrows at one damn squirrell i hear a grunt. armed with an osage bow and arrows made with stone tools and my favorite quiver made from a deer i killed , i draw a viburnum shaft that is tipped with a deadly sharp normanskill point. now i can hear the brute walking through the leaves. he walks out of the hemlocks roughly 40 yards away. basket rack 8 pointer (4x4 for you westies). typical rack for these woods. heavy body deer. probably 220 dressed. big deer for these woods. now he stops and tastes the air. he's at a fork , right fork will bring him to me at 15 yards. he goes left. i can hear him walking away from me. then silence. back to boredom. oh well at least i got to see him and maybe next.........i hear him again and he's moving fast.  coming back up the trail right towards me. now i had put that beautiful normanskill tipped arrow back in my quiver . i carefully reach in grab another arrow and nock it. buck is coming at a good pace and im trying to pick a spot between the saplings where i should stop him for the shot. i find the spot, bleat , he stops, im so focused my eyes are burning a hole through this deers chest. i draw, hit anchor, feel the string slide from my fingers, watch the shaft fly true right to the spot i was burning a hole through, .................................then watch the only blunt i had left in my quiver bounce of the chest of that deer. was so focused on the deer i never noticed i had nocked a hand carved 3/4" wooden blunt. arrow damn near landed at the foot of my treestand , buck ran 50 yards away and stopped. i sat down , took it all in , watching the buck lick his side, and then started to laugh my a$$ off. had 2 does come in but i was on the phone with my buddy telling him what i had done. by the time i got back home every hunter i knew had heard the story and was calling to see if it was true and to get a good laugh. ;D

quick p.s. that arrow still lays at the foot of that tree. not out of anger. kind of a reminder of that day.

Marc St Louis:
About 20 years ago my older brother and I were taking advantage of an early archery Deer season.  We had been hunting for a couple weeks without seeing anything so we decided to take a break from Deer hunting.  We grabbed our shotguns and took off for an area nearby that was full of Beaver dams looking for some Ducks.  While we were out there it started to rain so we took shelter under a big Spruce tree.  While we were waiting for the rain to stop we decided to start a small fire under the tree, it had a number of dead and dry branches underneath.  Every once in awhile I would get up and break some of them off for the fire, they would go POP as I broke them.  After several minutes of this we heard a noise off to one side.  We both glanced over and there was a really nice 8 point slowly walking by looking for what had made those popping noises.  He was not much more than 20 yards away and broadside.  I was wishing for a bow in hand and I'm sure my brother was as well.

Eric Krewson:
Back in the mid seventies I lived in Alabama but hunted land in Tn as well as Bama. Every year we applied for drawing for a bow hunt at an Army ammunition storage depot in Chattanooga. Thousands of acres of fenced in land stocked with blacktail deer as well as whitetails. Some of the blacktail bucks would exceed the word record but being a fenced in area anything killed there couldn't be entered into the record book.

Most years we were drawn for this hunt. We would gather at the office for an indoctrination, and then be asked to forfeit a variety of things including anything that made a flame because there were thousands of bunkers with live ordnance in them on this area. The area was like a checker board of roads, with bunkers in rows and woods between the bunkers and roads as well as small woodlots here and there. It wasn't an easy hunt but was different so we applied every year.

We were pretty green hunters and were bussed out to various locations and dropped off at random. We were mostly recurve shooters, compounds had just come out but only one of us shot one. We would wander around and try to stalk up on deer or take shots and what ever happened by. We weren't very successful and our party only killed one doe in several years of hunting.

On our last hunt on the area each of us were tracked down and rounded up by the area military police. We were given a very through search. I asked one of the MPs what was up, he said someone brought a dead deer with only a small nick in it's back leg, when they searched the guy he had several poison pods in his pocket, he was from Ms where the pods were legal. When they rounded up the whole bunch from Ms they all had pods.

When we walked in the gate the prison sentence for carrying banned substances into the depot were posted in huge letters. I suspect these guys are still in jail.

Keenan:
Great stories everyone,,,,,Jamie that blunt story had me choking on the coffee   :D :D

Pat B:
Here is another I've told before but...
   At our club in GA I was heading to my afternoon stand. The pine tree I would have put my stand in is surrounded by water oaks and the ground was littered with these small acorns. As I broke into the woods about 100 yds from the tree I noticed a deer feeding under it. I squatted and removed my climbing stand from my back, nocked an arrow and did a short "toot" on my grunt call.  The deer, a fork horn, turned and charged in my dirrection at full speed. When he was about 10' away he turned sharply to my right and lost footing with all 4 feet. He hit the ground only a foot or so from me, quickly got to his feet and was gone.
  In the mean time 5 other deer that I never saw began to run but they went to my left. Without thinking I spun, drew and released on the lead doe. I hear a "whack" and the deer were gone. I went over to see if there was blood on the ground and found my arrow dead center of a 2" diameter sweet gum tree. I was using a Wensel Woodsman(3 blade) broadhead and it was buried half way through the sapling. When I attempted to remove it the arrow(cedar) broke right behind the point. I had to cut the sapling down and split it to retrieve my broadhead.
  Normally I wouldn't shoot ar a moving target much less a running target but instinct took over. I still think if that sweet gum hadn't been there I would have taken the doe. My instincts are way better than any thoughtful shots I've ever made.    This was one of the most exciting 15 seconds of my 30 years of bow hunting.  8)

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