Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
mattys281

My buddy's first archery buck - and a small one for me.

Recommended Posts

We had some great coues bucks on camera and had seen some nice muleys in person, so we were going into the hunt with very high hopes. The plan was that my good buddy Jeff & I would be up there for 10 days and my daughter would drive up and hunt with us on the weekends.
Life had other plans though, and with about two weeks before season opened I received a handful of contracts on new jobs for my machine shop that had been looming for a while, so now our ten day hunt was cut down to five. And my kiddo picked up a new job, so she basically just had the first weekend.
Jeff is an accomplished rifle hunter with some nice coues to his credit, but he'd not yet been able to harvest one with his bow. That changed on opening day. He had a couple smaller ones pass him by early in the morning, then around 10:00am a couple more little guys came in. One little forky buck gave him a perfect 20 yard shot. He'd been so amped up and shaky when the the first ones came in that he tried real hard to calm himself with the second group and drew back and aimed at the forky with the intention of just practicing to stay calm, but once he was on target and felt calm & solid in the shot, he just let it go and the rest is history. He made a perfect broadside shot on the little buck and it only ran about 75 yards before piling up.
post-1431-0-85690600-1504116486_thumb.jpg
That evening we had to leave camp to drive into town and meet up with my daughter. By the time we met up with her and drove back out to camp it was almost 1:00AM before we got to bed, so we decided to 'sleep in' and set the alarm for 5:00am instead of 4:00. We got to the stand late that day, but it still worked out pretty well. My daughter had a perfect shot at a little button buck, but her arrow sailed high over it's back. It must run in the family, because I also shot high over a little forky that same day. Our hunt that day was cut short when a monsoon rolled in with lightning and a downpour rain. We ended up back at camp by 3:00pm and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get a fire started to dry out our clothes.
Next day was slow, we hunted all day but didn't see much. Called it a night and slept in a little the next morning, and then after my kiddo left for home, I went back out to sit in my stand. Sat through about 2 hours of intermittent rain and thunder, then the weather turned nice. This was my last evening to hunt, so I wasn't about to get down unless the lightning was right on top of me, but it wasn't real bad that night anyway so I just rode it out and enjoyed the show.
It worked out for me. At just after 5:00pm I spotted a little forky working his way up the ridge to go by me. I immediately knew I would take him if given the opportunity, so my heart started pounding and the adrenaline started pumping. I took some deep breaths to calm myself down and kept telling myself, 'It's just another target... no big deal.' When he stopped at 20 yards and gave me a great shot with his head down, I sent one right through him and he bounded off a mere 50 yards before piling up within sight of my stand.
All in all, a great hunt, even though it was a short one.
post-1431-0-38918900-1504116519_thumb.jpg

 

  • Like 12

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

congrats to both of you. Bonus props for not long arming the pics...lol

 

If my arms were 48" long, it still wouldn't be enough to make them look big!

 

Gonna taste good though. :D

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

getting the heart pounding and then calming it all down for a good release, that is the juice. Props for braving the lightning!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice jobs guys

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×