Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Archived Hunting Pics => Shooting and Hunting => 2009 Hunting Pics => Topic started by: JW_Halverson on September 30, 2011, 01:51:52 am
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I know it's late to post pics of the 2009 season, but since I am able to post pics now I am making hay while the sun shines.
I was stalking two little forkie muley bucks in a meadow up behind my house. They were mock sparring with their little racks just to show off. There were half a dozen does in the meadow already and most of them knew me by sight. Several of them were known to bed in the yard with their fawns within yards of my dog. The does were pretty well tame, unlike the bucks.
I did something stupid and flushed the bucks like a couple of pheasants in a corn field and felt like an idiot. I pulled my little basket rack of horns from my daypack and started tickling the points to see if they little farts would come back. Instead I heard a horse galloping towards me and I immediately thought that Terry, the landowner, would be pissed if I arrowed his little mustang filly! Instead, it was a mule deer buck and he almost brushed my shoulder as he ran around me and stopped broadside at 10 yds! I was shocked to say the least because he had to know I wasn't another deer, sight and smell had to confirm that! But he looked at the antlers in my hands, snorted, and lowered his head.
I dropped the antlers, I was not ready (or willing) for what he was thinking! Then I realized as I looked at his grossly engorged neck that it was the rut and now I looked less like a buck and more like a doe! I was even less less ready (or willing) for what he was thinking!! In slow motion I bent over and picked up the bow and an arrow from my feet as he continued to stare at me. I faltered with the arrow and dropped it, picked it up again in slow motion, dropped it again and gave up on the whole slow motion thingy...it's not like he didn't see me!!!
I nocked the arrow just as he turned and walked away with that funny stiff gait they use to show contempt. Now all I had was a perfect Texas Heart Shot of his broad backside. Nothing ventured nothing gained, so I said out loud, "Hey buddy? Can you turn around for me?" He did. And at no more than 15 yds.
I made full draw, exhaled and watched my arrow seemingly hang in mid-air spinning like a whirligig. I had a half moment while I was watching the arrow flight and realized I had just made a perfect release for once. No porpoising, no side to side wagging, just a nock with feathers spinning around it. Just then the arrow hit the deer low behind the shoulder up tight on the front leg! No more slow motion, the world exploded. The arrow bounced back out at me, a spray of blood hung in the air as the buck went off like a rodeo bronc with firecrackers under his saddle.
He kick-hopped across the meadow and stopped 30 yds out standing broadside again. I felt sick as a gut kicked dog for hitting the scapula, it must have been the scapula, why else would the arrow bounce right back at me? But then I noticed a pink foamy splotch on his side. But this was the opposite side than the one I shot at! I had double lunged him.
I kept my eyes down, never looked him in the eye. I wanted him to think I was rooted to the spot and no threat at all. He bought it. He bought it in a big way because he snorted and started walking towards the half dozen does watching the scene. His head came down and his neck stretched out as he drew in lungfuls of muley doe estrus scents. His little tongue was flicking in and out pulling in those precious molecules of hotties in heat. He zeroed in on a doe and she flicked her tail at him and kicked half-heartedly at him. He approached again and was kicked at again, but still he came on. Finally she stopped and he did all he could to rise up to the occaision, but the broadhead was finishing it's lethal job. His blood pressure was dropping even as his libido was rising. He went down and thrashed briefly.
I was close enough to see his sides weren't moving, he was done.
(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo100/JW_Halverson/Muley%20Bucks/427442-R1-048-22A_023.jpg)
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Immediately I had my cell phone out calling my budddy, Barry. Barry has been a mentor to me in more ways than one. He taught me to build bows, he took me hunting deer at age 40 - the first time in my life, taught me catfish were good eating and many other valuable things. I had to share this moment with him.
I was trying to make myself speak slowly and calmly when a larger buck came down off the hill and started kicking the living crap outa my dead buck. He was pawing at him, raking him with his antlers and generally making a nuisance of himself. I thought my buck was big, this guy was huuuge. At one point he had locked horns and had flipped my buck end over end! I screamed into the phone for Barry to get here NOW and shoot this other buck!
I chased the big guy off my buck and hung back. He kept circling like a half starved wolf and wouldn't leave. Minutes later I hear tires on gravel, the sound of a pickup door open and the ding ding ding of the stupid indicator that tells you that you are an idiot for leaving your door open and your key in the ignition. Next thing here's Barry, half dressed with a yew longbow in one hand and a fistful of broadheads in the other.
He sees the buck on the ground, blasphemes, then sees the bigger buck, blashemes a bit more as he nocks an arrow. At 20 yards in the wide open, he takes a broadside shot at this deer and sails an airball arrow 6 ft over the buck's HORNS! Arrows go only where you look, he has always told me. Yup. He proved it again. The buck is gone like last year's bottle rockets.
I did get a picture of that buck later that fall:
(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo100/JW_Halverson/Muley%20Bucks/R1-08756-0022.jpg)
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But we have to give credit where credit is due. We who know Barry know he can snatch defeat fight from the jaws of victory when the chips are down.
Another buck strayed in to see just who the master of the blue language might be. Ol' Barry had almost passed out from the string of oaths he let fly when he missed the largest buck he had ever drawn a bowstring on. Ol' Blue Streak calmly nocked another arrow and punched a broadhead thru the second buck's boiler room and sealed the deal.
(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo100/JW_Halverson/Muley%20Bucks/427442-R1-046-21A_022.jpg)
Forkhorns eat good too.
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The Happy Idiots Hunting Club:
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That's one of the best hunting stories I've read. Hilarious too :) That's just crazy how hormones and endorphins can affect the judgement of an animal that is normally so cautious.
2009 or 2011 - great story either way! Better late than never.
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Nice story. Thanks for the laugh.
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As always, you crack me up. Beautiful bucks. I too have shot an arrow in between the horns of a nice buck, so I can't throw too many stones. Looks like you don't go quite as far as we do down here to get the hunting woods.
George
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Great stuff! good luck topping that one this year! I like the part about the initial shot - goes to show how in the heat of the shot, perception and reality often don't connect.
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What a story! Can't say that I've ever heard one like it...almost hunting from a defensive mode to keep from getting attacked! Congrats to you both!
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Wow, great story. Great buck!
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jw thats the good stuff !!
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cool story congrats JW! :)
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Good job J-DUB! Way to "stick" it man.
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Great story and buck JW! Ive never had to hunt defensively but I have seen bucks do some pretty dumb stuff when their hormones are raging.
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Great story JW. Did you figure out why your arrow bounced back to you?
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Never did figure that out! The arrow shaft broke off squarely behind the broadhead. I searched the area the next day with a borrowed metal detector and never did recover the broadhead.
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Once in a lifetime trophy and a darn good story :o
Cipriano
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Good story and good looking deer and bow,almost couldn't find this,couldn't figure out the section it was in but seen it on the board. :) :)
Pappy
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For all those that tell you that a deer in rut is "gamey"...this buck's neck was bigger than my chest! Ate ever' scrap of him. For those that say hanging a deer won't "age" them because that only works with beef, ever' bite was fork tender or it was my own fault for talking on the phone while making dinner!
He was sure pretty...both in the field and on the plate.
Just realized that if I had been able to take the shot right away, I would have been in the "Pappy zone". Ever see anyone harvest more deer at spitting distance than him? Venison Whisperer!