Late Season Tom

Mornings get earlier and earlier as the turkey season progresses.  Coffee becomes the all-important essential as there is just no way around it, 3:45 AM is early!

 

I rolled myself out of bed and tossed my camo clothing on like a well-oiled machine as I prepared myself to head out on a hunt for the mighty May Tom.  I was particularly excited as I was out a couple of days earlier and had two toms circling up on a few hens and both were easily within bow range at less than twenty-five yards, however I was never able to get a clear unobstructed shot. -That is just tough to handle as everything was done correctly and the birds came in, but the moment of truth was absent.  This morning was going to be different though. (At least this is what I told myself.)  

Brother Gob

 I knew that there was a minimum of three bruiser birds on my property yet as I would catch them very frequently strutting their stuff on a couple of food plots I set up with trail cameras. Two of the birds I had nicknamed Brother Gob, akin to Brother Gib. (Those bell bottom wearing disco dudes called the BeeGees from back in the 60s and 70s for those not so musically following.) Brother Gob were two birds that enjoyed strutting together. And then there was the local heavy hitter, "Quarter Strut". This old boy had a real dangler of a beard, however he only had four tail feathers, which technically would land him as a 4/17 strut, but I gave him a little extra. -This Tom had cruised the gauntlet earlier on in the spring with one close call with what I thought looked like I coyote attack. We were out scouring the woods for sheds when I found a pile of Tom tail feathers all piled together. I looked for the carcass, but apparently the coyote must have drug it off, or at least I suspected... Until a couple of weeks later when Ol' Quarter Strut confirmed his place in legendary status showing off his four tail feathers in full strut mode! 

 

"Quarter Strut... Lives."

This particular late season morning was beautiful as it was clear and crisp. My wife had to bring her flowers in the night before as the temps dropped down around 29-30 degrees. After getting settled into the blind I patiently waited for some roost gobbling to commence, however the birds were extremely quiet this morning.-Not a gobble. Not a peep. The sun rose and I patiently waited, listening, and calling very sparingly.  At just before 6:20 AM a group of four hens came right in front of my blind purring at the jake and hen decoy I had out. I waited for a Tom that usually seems to shadow groups of hens like this usually looming like a mystery shadow 40-50 yards back. -No Tom here today though. The hens continued to loiter with the decoys and after about ten minutes a red-headed Tom was cruising up from the creek bottom. 

 

A beautiful May Tom.

I had the opening picked out as I envisioned the Tom would come right to the hens and the decoys as scripted, however this Tommy Boy writes his own scripts and stubbornly went into full strut on a trail 25 yards from me, but right behind a small deadfall that would definitely snag my arrow if I tried to sneak a shot through. I patiently waited as I encountered a great strut show. This was 1/2 of Brother Gob from what I determined. -A beautiful strutter. Two other Toms gobbled only a couple hundred yards away, but this bird stayed in strut and kept his beak shut. He had his gals located and was focussed on showing them his moves. However, I had seen enough of his moves and was ready to let an arrow fly. The hens had apparently seen enough as well as they exited the scene the same way that they showed up. As the hens walked by the (extremely horny) Tom he did something I've never seen a bird do. -He spilled his seed on the ground!  These birds are indeed odd creatures!

Turkey a-la-Wisconsin, a grilling pleasure.

Finally, the Tom took the smallest of baby steps while he continued to move in strut. These small steps brought him into an opening for me and as soon as he turned his fan I drew back. Once the Tom spun back he offered a broadside shot and I released the arrow from 25 yards. -Smack! The Tom was popped hard and he rolled onto his side and hobbled about fifteen yards and laid down just inside some timber, however his head remained up. I did look at him through my rangefinder and could see that he had some blood coming from his beak, the sign of a long hit more than likely. After just a couple minutes he got up and walked two yards and laid right back down. I could no longer see him as there was now a red pine lined up perfectly between us. I knew from past experience to just let the bird be, however he got up yet again as the hens started putting and he tried flying in the hurt/hobble/trying to fly technique that we've all seen once or twice? This maneuver got my blood pressure going as he was now completely out of site and moving into some young white pines that are very thick. With that, I quickly unzipped the blind and went into full caveman rundown mode with bow in hand. Within a few seconds the bird was secured and upon inspection my shot was about an inch back as it clipped one lung and blew up the top of the leg on exit.  I believe the Tom was a two year old as he weighed 19.4 lbs, a sported inch spurs, and an eight inch beard. 

What an unreal way to finish off the 2015 season!  I'm already looking forward to next spring. 

 

Gobble-gobble! -Luke

John Daniel’s Rookie Debut

John Daniel, or “JD” as most call him got information from his grandpa late in 2014 that Grandpa had found out that JD could legally turkey hunt in Minnesota as a youth at age six.  JD quickly became elated as he has been enthralled to say the least in hunting ever since he could walk and talk.  Over the next few months a calendar date was set and the spring turkey hunting trip to Minnesota materialized.  During this time JD continued to work on gun safety and blew through a couple boxes of .410 ammunition practicing for the moment of truth that he hoped would arrive in May.  Most importantly, JD handled the gun very safely.  His marksmanship showed great improvement over this time as well.  We found out that the biggest obstacle that he found was ensuring that his cheek was down on the gun and that the gun’s stock was properly seated along his shoulder.  (Although the gun was a .410 and not great in barrel size it still was an adult gun.)

As the spring turkey season arrived JD spent quite a few mornings and afternoons in the blind with me as I worked on getting a turkey here in Wisconsin.  -This was “training” for JD as he called it for his upcoming hunt.  He worked on staying quiet, did some calling, and continued to work on his general woodsmanship as he had for the previous few springs.

 May quickly arrived and we found ourselves packing up to head west to Minnesota.  JD was very much excited.  The weather for the weekend that we had picked looked less and less favorable, however this was not going to stop us as we were on a mission and had blinds to sit in and protect us from the elements.

We arrived at Grandpa Dan’s farm and JD and I quickly found ourselves sitting in an afternoon location not too far from the house.  JD helped set up the decoys and the two of us patiently waited and called sparingly about every twenty minutes or so.  The afternoon wore on and JD became less focused so we decided to pick up and call it a day.  Turkeys: 1, JD: 0.

The following morning arrived early for me as JD kept me up all night.  –He said that he couldn’t sleep because he was so excited.  (I am all for excitement, however I hope that this sleeping deal cures itself sooner as opposed to later as the 4:00AM wake-up calls are tough even with getting “a full night’s sleep”!)   This morning we were off to one of Grandpa Dan’s other hand-picked “honey hole” locations that he had been watching all spring.  After arriving and getting set up in the dark the gobbling soon began.  Several toms were located to the south of us and were all roost gobbling for at least a half hour before getting off of the roost.  We scanned the field in front of us and had a few hens show up along with a few jakes through the morning.  We also watched a mature tom strut for a hen for nearly an hour about 300 yards from our position.  There was no sweet talking that would lure that gobbler from the hen.  All in all, it was a very eventful morning and we even saw a coupl coyotes and a few deer.  Once the morning hunt was deeded as over we made the group decision to reposition the blind to the corner of the field where we believed the tom was roosted along a small island of trees for the next morning’s hunt.  Turkeys: 2, JD: 0.

The next morning arrived and brought with it thunderstorms in epic proportions.  If JD hadn’t been hunting and it wasn’t his final day with Grandpa Dan I would not have thought twice about tucking myself back into bed and catching some additional sleep, however we were going hunting---hell or high water.  (High water it was!)  This morning, Nolan, JD’s younger brother was additionally going to join us for the early AM adventure.  Nolan is always a wildcard and is guaranteed to offer laughs even if things are ugly, so we couldn’t go wrong?!  Once again, we arrived at the blind in the dark, however this time there was light rain and the skies were filled with lightning.  The walk to the blind was a bit interesting as we slopped our way across a recently planted oats field that was more like Louisiana Gumbo.



Ok, so even a six year old runs out of energy sometimes...

 After getting settled into the blind we all patiently waited for the storms to subside and for it to start getting light out. I was particularly proud of the boys and how quietly they made it into the blind believing that we were fairly close to a roosted gobbler.  After about fifteen or twenty minutes of listening to the rain as we sat in the dark a closer raincloud let out a thunder and with it followed old tom, the thunder chicken, with a gobble that had to have easily been within 50 yards of the blind.  I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, we’d be rewarded for our foolish choice to hunt in the rain.   Another half hour passed and the skies let up and it began to get lighter and lighter ever so slowly.  I knew that we would have a short window this morning to work the birds as the radar was littered with heavy rain.  With that in mind, I told JD to get ready because the tom could pitch down into the decoys at any given moment.  This didn’t happen, however, after a few short clucks we did hear a bird or two hop off of their roost along the wood line.  We looked up just in time to see a couple of toms that were easily within gun range however JD was only shooting a .410 and was not even set up to shoot that direction.  The birds proceeded to walk to the south where they met another tom and a few jakes.  The birds did not spook, but for whatever reason they were not even moderately interested in our set-up or calling.  Maybe we had got too close to their roost?  Maybe it was the blind?  Maybe they weren’t into hen turkeys?  Who knows?  All that we knew was that the birds were close, but gone now. 

 We hung out in the blind for another couple of hours as it continued to rain.  Disguising the blind as an ark became an increasingly more popular idea to lure in unsuspecting animals looking for shelter.  Meanwhile, Nolan consumed his time with picking night crawlers from the ground under the blind as he became more and more enthralled with them.   Our patience and foolish pride was once again rewarded as a couple of hens appeared and picked their way through the field and soon thereafter some magical jakes just showed up to the east of us about 400 yards, poof!  The jakes were in no hurry to do anything as they meandered this way and that in the field.  They were kind of making their way towards our side of the field, but really didn’t look all that interested.  Over the course of the next ten or fifteen minutes every call in the bag was scratched, struck, blown, or beaten.  These jakes were a Hail Mary and we were desperately hoping these guys would come and take a look at the decoys so that JD could get a shot.   As if our prayers to the turkey gods were answered, two jakes broke away slightly and showed moderate interest.  Within another couple of minutes these two crazy hombres were on a string coming to the decoys on a mad bum rush that looked like a jail break.   (This is what we call the "jake hustle".)  I told JD to get ready and I could tell that he was getting excited by his eyes. 

 Within seconds the two jakes were rubbing up against the decoy.  I told JD to take a deep breath and take his time.  The safety clicked off on his double barreled .410 and a moment later a shot rang out as the birds stood at twelve yards.  The birds continued to stand at twelve yards following the shot though!  I am not certain, but I think JD shot right over the top of the birds’ head.  The jakes scampered away and we nearly coaxed them back for another volley, however it did not happen.  I looked at JD’s face and although he held back his tears I know he was welling up.  (I felt like I may cry!)  Grandpa Dan consoled him and he told both of us that he was sorry.  We both told him that there was absolutely nothing to be “sorry” about.  Everything was done right on the hunt with the exception of the shot, which is not a big deal.   After a few minutes of dejection JD bounced back and was back in the right mindset and was smiling.  

 The weekend was one that JD will never forget as he had the opportunity to share his first hunt with Uncle Nick, Nolan, his dad, a good friend of our family’s, Brandon Cizek, and most importantly, Grandpa Dan.  I am sure that the JD and Grandpa will share many more great mornings together in the blind, however this one will not soon be forgotten.   And JD, I never missed a turkey until I was twenty-four years old; however I never hunted turkeys until I was twenty-four either!  You're years ahead of me! FINAL SCORE: Turkeys: 3, JD: All smiles! J

Spring Thunder

The 2015 turkey season kicked off on April 15 with “questionable” expectations.  The early morning scouting missions that I had worked in the weeks leading up to the season yielded very poor results. -I had heard absolutely no roost gobbling and the overall number of sightings was significantly down in contrast to years past. This was particularly concerning considering the winters of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, which were unbelievably brutal coupled with the 2013 spring that had extremely wet brooding conditions.

 I found myself scratching my head wondering which location to hunt as the season approached.  With only four days before the opening morning my oldest son, JD, and I decided to put my blind up in a high ground location along a small ridge line in hopes that it would serve as a possible travel corridor and would be a good starting point to simply listen for gobbles on opening morning if nothing else.  Adjustments could always be made in the following days. After talking with my hunting partner, Nick, he was in full agreement with the starting location. Upon setting the blind, JD and I saw a tom strutting a short distance of 250 yards away with a group of seven lady friends... With that simple sighting I felt a least a little better about the outlook for the opening season.

 Opening morning brought perfect hunting conditions. -Clear skies, very little wind, and temps starting around 40 degrees. I was optimistic that the birds would be vocal and ready to act, however after a couple hours of the season occurred there wasn't a single gobble to be heard. The optimism quickly faded to pessimism and the head scratching started again.  However, right before leaving the blind to head to work a couple of distant gobbles sounded off and the optimism returned. We did have a lonely hen additionally come to our calling that morning.  This hen hung around the jake/hen dakota decoy spread for quite some time, but the "real deal" even failed to lure in a tom despite vocalizing her want for a boy toy.  

 On Saturday morning my trusty hunting buddies, Nick and JD, joined me at the blind.  The morning started off a little shaky as I forgot the decoys and had to double back and make some time up.  I managed to make it to the blind yet just before opening light and we all got settled in after a few jabs were taken at me by Nick.  Once again, no roost gobbling, however a couple hours into the hunt we heard a distant gobble off a few hundred yards. As we patiently waited and listened a couple more gobbles ensued as a crow had this gobbler fired up.  We continued to call sparingly and a couple more gobbles were heard. Within a few short minutes a lone hen appeared and a tom erupted with a thundering gobble as he was quickly closing the distance. Our eyes focused on the line that the hen came on as we figured this tom was shadowing her.  A jake then appeared and I readied my bow as I was in full "kill mode" now. I began determining potential openings in the young white pines where I may potentially have a shot opportunity while Nick lightly made hen music on the slate call.

 My focus on the jake was suddenly interrupted when Nick informed me that there was a big tom coming in hard at our twelve o'clock at seventy five yards and closing quickly amidst the white pines. Although I didn't immediately see him through the pines in just a brief few seconds I did as he closed the gap to 30 yards. We anticipated a very tight shot as the jake decoy was at eight yards, however the tom settled right at twenty yards directly in front of the blind next to his hen friend. I told Nick and JD, who had a front row seat now, that I was going to take this shot. I readied the bow and had a tight right corner shot through the blind. Despite the tight angle I felt extremely confident with the shot as his head was down and centered itself right in front of his body. I decided to shoot for the base of the bird's neck as I determined that it would be a center punch hit even if I slightly missed the base of the neck.

 I drew back and let the montec laced arrow fly. Instead of hearing a "wump" sound that I was expecting I simply heard a simple "swish" as it sounded like a clean miss. I quickly questioned myself on just what had happened, however the turkey's reactions made it quite clear as he crumpled to the ground and lay motionless. A perfect shot! The broadhead nearly lopped the tom's head completely off.  A number of high fives erupted from the blind and JD ecstatically took off from the blind to check out the bird.

 Within just a few short minutes the question marks were answered and an odd opening week with great weather brought a 22 lb long beard to us. The overall numbers of turkeys could be down, but all it takes is one bird to make a season and a great memory with two best hunting buddies, my son and my brother. 

 

Gobble-Gobble! -luke

Making Memories...

My oldest son, John Daniel, and I set out to the woods on the Friday afternoon of the Wisconsin rifle season together.  Earlier that day we sat together for the morning hunt and did not see much of anything.  Although we both had high hopes of getting a deer sometimes not seeing anything can serve a purpose as well.  –The two of us talked about patience over lunch that day.  We also talked about persistence and how when persistence is coupled with patience over the long haul one will be much more successful not only in the woods, hunting, but also in life.  I realize that this is me talking to my six year old son, but I just hope that he can take even a little away from this kind of talk and apply it sometime in life.

As the afternoon unwound John Daniel and I started to see some deer up and moving around, which was a great sign.  By 3:00 o’clock we had already surpassed our morning total, which wasn’t all that difficult as we had only seen two, but nonetheless it was promising.  The next half hour brought more and more deer to their feet and we were both constantly scanning this way and that in search of a buck that may have eluded everyone so far.  Sure enough, on cue, a nice buck stepped out about 250 yards away.  Both of us quickly tried to get our binoculars on him, but just as we got settled in on him he cruised into the woods.  We had a good idea where he might come out if he stayed moving the same direction we saw him moving on and I readied the rifle.  As the buck stepped out he was facing left and John Daniel noted that he was a “shooter”.  I centered the rifle and told John Daniel to cover his ears.  With a “boom” the buck went down and we knew that he was down for good.  When I turned to John Daniel he was smiling from ear to ear and was already getting ready to go clean the deer!  He then said something that gave me a good inner-chuckle as he said, "Looks like our patience paid off, Dad."  Yes, JD, looks like it did.  :) (If only it was that easy every time.)

The two of us got down from the stand and walked to the downed buck, a nice eight point.  Certainly not one of my largest deer ever, but a trophy that will forever be etched in my mind as a hunt with John Daniel.  After we finished cleaning the deer the two of us drug it back to the truck to open the tailgate and realize that we had an Otter Sled aboard and could have made the dragging twice as easy if we’d have only remembered it.  The two of us laughed about it and I shook my head.  –There’s always a next time, right?  I certainly hope that there are many “next times”.  I look forward to dragging countless deer out of the woods with John Daniel and his younger brother and sister by my side in the many years to come.  This is truly what it’s all about. 

Good Huntin’ ,

Luke

"Lucky" Luke Strikes Again...

The word “Luck” is thrown around all of the time… It seems as though it has often been synonymous with me.  Sure, my name, “Luke”, sounds and looks a lot like “luck.” One of my boyhood baseball idols, Pete Rose, even went as far as signing an autograph to me as to “Lucky Luke.”  (In reality, he had just had a long day and had a lapse in the spelling of my name, but we’ll stick with it as it goes well with the story.) The word “luck” is originally derived from “Łuck”, which just so happens to be Polish and is pronounced as “lootsk”. So, there is that very distinguishable commonality.  The definition of “luck” in the form of a noun is as follows:

1. the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities:

With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.

2. good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance:

He had no luck finding work.

3. a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person:

She's had nothing but bad luck all year.

4. some object on which good fortune is supposed to depend:

This rabbit's foot is my luck.

            Some folks have often said that I am the luckiest man in the world. (-Usually this is said in a state of haste and not always in the friendliest of means with a bit of attitude along with it.) However, I couldn’t agree more and believe this is indeed a true fact.  I did state this in my very own wedding speech a little over eight years ago as I stole a quote from the Iron Horse, Lou Gerig. (I did quote him to ensure that he was credited though.) 

            To say that luck has been on my side throughout my lifetime would be a gross understatement.  I have much to be thankful for.  A loving, healthy family that includes the best wife I could ever imagine, three little rays of sunshine, JD, Nolan, and Kat, two wonderful brothers, loving parents that have been the constant oak trees to lean on throughout my life, a mother-in-law that is so kind and caring, and a great host of other family members and friends that have served as great inspiration throughout life.  I have also been lucky to share many moments with some extremely valued family members who have passed away, but shared memorable times with me while here. –These are the people and things I am indeed lucky for.

            As far as the other facets of life, I have had great fortune, that some may call luck, on my side as well.  Here, I attribute a few things to the fortune.  First and foremost, the persistence. Persistence, persistence, persistence. (And then more persistence.)  Some call it an addictive personality, however I call it persistence. There is probably a fine line between the two, but I certainly don’t need to see that.

Next, positive thinking.  My opinion is that positive thinking puts everything else in place and truly legitimizes the odds of a perceived “chance” falling in one’s favor.  Just think about it for a minute… When was the last time you accomplished anything going into it thinking that you did not have a chance to succeed? 

Finally, there is some type of horseshoe or rabbit’s foot involved, but this is the “chance” aspect.  The chance aspect, or luck as some may call it, is maximized by persistence and positive thinking.  Still, there are no guarantees, and someone needs to make the right cards fall into place.  Faith?  Luck? A mixture of both?  I don’t claim to have this answer. What I do know is that some call me “Lucky Luke.”  For the record, I don’t have any problem with the name and hope it sticks for a long time! 

Good huntin'. -luke     

Half Racked/Full Track

My younger brother, Nicholas, recently arrowed a buck from one of our stands, the “donut up-top stand”, which was named this because it overlooks a little piece of woods that has an alfalfa tote road that circles it, on a Saturday evening.  I was not on stand that night, but met him back at my house following the hunt.  Upon his return I could tell right away that he had shot one, but I could also tell nearly immediately that he didn’t feel great about the hit or the findings.  He explained the shot angle to me and went into great detail how the scenario played out that evening as he hit the buck from approximately 22 yards and he took off with a good portion of the arrow still not penetrating and soon thereafter breaking off within sight, thanks in part to the visionary aid of the luminock as it was nearing dusk.  He further noted that upon inspection 15 minutes following the shot he did find slight traces of blood and the broken arrow, but that was it.  We decided to wait a minimum of three hours as we suspected a liver/single lung shot, and ultimately gave it close to four hours before resuming the track with headlamps and flashlights.

Upon returning to the scene Nick and I went through the positioning of the deer and sightline as to where the deer ran and began to track again.  –The blood (or lack thereof) hadn’t got better and we struggled to inch our way forward for quite some time, but did find a small trace here and there before we couldn’t find a drop.  We searched high and low meandering up and down plausible escape routes from the last blood.  Finally, I stumbled across some very good blood about 75 yards from where the last drop was spotted.  Here, it appeared as though the deer had paused and walked for about twenty yards.  The blood looked dark and crimson red, which made us believe it was indeed a liver hit.  Now, the blood looked very good though and I didn’t think it’d be too long before we would come across the deer.   Unfortunately, this was not even close to the case as the decent blood only lasted about twenty yards and then went to nothing, absolutely nothing.  We once again worked off of the direction that the deer had been heading, but it became apparent that the deer had changed direction here and was no longer on the same path.   -We thought that the deer had paused here after the initial rush off from the scene and perhaps when Nick had left his stand to back out that it had been bumped and took off on a hard run again.  Either way, the bloodtrail was now gone and the night was long so we decided at 1:30 am to call it a night and resume the track in the broad daylight the morning would bring.

Upon the return to the woods the next morning Nick and I had additional tracking help by the means of his girlfriend, Randi, my son, John Daniel and my dog, Otto.  –The woods were far from sterile now and we knew it was turning from a blood trail recovery to a body search.   We formulated a plan going into the search and I had a couple of good starting points where I’d take JD and Otto and see if we could find anything.  After not finding anything at the first two spots we were really beginning to scratch our heads.  We headed into the last real decent spot I thought looked like a possibility.  This spot was thick, younger pines that just about made us feel claustrophobic because of its density.  Soon thereafter, by some grace of God, we looked down and found a drop of blood along the floor of this pine hell.  JD and Otto both got excited and we soon found another and another! At this point we held off on moving further into the track as I called Nick to get him on the scene.  –I felt good about this, even though it was still pretty poor blood. 

Once Nick and Randi arrived we resumed the track and it was a pretty steady dime-sized drop followed by another, followed by the deer only thirty to forty yards from where we had discovered the blood!  It appeared by the RM that had set in that the buck had expired in the early evening.  The shot had entered behind the diaphragm and put a slice through the opposite side’s liver without exiting.  All in all, a lot of smiles.  The deer was perfectly intact as no coyotes had found this booty and the temperature had dipped just below freezing that night and the meat was perfect yet.  It is always such a pleasure finding a deer like this that may have otherwise not been found.  We determined that the deer had made it approximately 600 yards from where it was hit to where it had eventually died, which is about right for a liver shot like this.   Good work, everyone!

Opening Day Jynx?

Opening day 2014 brought with it perfect temperatures as the morning brought the thermometer down to 40 degrees and the high for the afternoon was 55 with very little wind. –Perfect for shooting a buck that I had patterned. –Over the course of my bow hunting career, now twenty-seven years, I have never, to my recollection, drawn my bow on a deer opening day. This was about to change!

As I climbed up my stand and got settled in for an afternoon hunt in mid-September this opening day of the 2014 bow season I thought to myself, “what a perfect day to shoot a deer.” -The sun was out and the temperatures were cool, which would make for good deer movement. Additionally, in the event that a deer would be shot, it could hang over night without the worry of any meat spoiling. Typically, this is not the scenario I’ve grown to expect on opening weekend as it seems like it is usually raining or sultry hot and muggy with mosquitoes swarming and buzzing you like a flock of famished buzzards.

After a couple of hours on the stand I was very settled in and quite comfortable. –I had really missed sitting up in the stand reflecting on life and simply relaxing over the past few months. –For me, this is my total Zen. No deer for the first couple of hours, but that would soon change as a medium sized doe soon showed up as she came in from my backside. The only sound that she made was her hoof hitting a log, which put me on alert and let me know she was creeping near my stand. Soon thereafter, another deer showed up walking along the same trail, a young eight point. Things were looking better and better. Both deer nearly walked under my stand with no scent detection, which is always a good sign. After watching the two deer for a couple minutes both deer went on alert as another deer approached coming across a food plot that I had recently put in. –I immediately readied my bow as I saw a nice rack on this deer. The buck had his ears back and trotted within 15 yards of my stand as he chased the smaller eight point. After a few minutes, which seemed like an hour, he was standing at 29 yards and presented a slight quartering away shot for me. I drew back on him and settled the 30 yard pin right on his heart. Upon release I hit exactly where I was aiming and the buck took off with my arrow still in him, about 90% through, but with the fletching just sticking out. My eyes told me that I had buried the pin perfectly and made the exact shot that I wanted, but sometimes the mind can play tricks on you, and I was not about to get too over confident. All in all, I felt very good about the shot though.

I then waited about 15 minutes before lowering my bow from my stand. I summoned the troops, consisting of a couple of my good hunting friends, Nick and Steve, along with Steve’s older son, and my older son, JD. (Probably a lot of overkill in terms of a tracking team, but we all like to get in on a good track and I wasn’t about to leave anyone out.) We waited until dark and took to the trail with our headlamps on. Immediately we found good blood that soon turned to great blood. JD, my six year old, was leading the charge to find the buck as the blood trail was perfect for him as it glistened with the light of our headlamps even as the buck ran through the pine timber. Within 100 yards JD called out that he had found him. –What a way to start the year! Upon investigation it was discovered that I indeed had shot exactly where I was aiming as I “center punched” the buck through the heart. Obviously, it is great shooting a deer, but what made it all that much better was that my son and good friends could join in on a perfect opener, which could not have been scripted any better. We were able to hang the deer and the butchering commenced the following day. Fresh venison awaits.