My 2018 Hunting included several firsts for me. I got my first bow and started archery shooting for the first time in September 2017 and my wife got her first bow in October. Feeling like we were shooting well enough to attempt hunting we got OTC Deer tags and on some vacation time the last two weeks of January 2018 picked an area we had seen deer in before while driving through. Since our ability to hike any real distance is limited and so far our stalking abilities suck, we found a water hole to sit to hopefully ambush a buck that might come in within our bow range. We saw quite a few deer come in, some does within 10-11 yrds from us! We both had shot opportunities at nice bucks but our inexperience along with Healthy doses of Buck Fever prevented us from connecting with only clean misses. We practiced all year and went back out to this spot on December 16. We got in and set up under a big oak about 7:15 and waited and watched, my wife just over an arms length to my right. About an hour later I saw a deer moving through the brush and trees about 70 yrds away. When it dropped into the bowl of the water hole at about 40 yrds I thought it was a doe due to limited visibility and not wanting to move enough to use my binos and spook it out in case a buck was following her in. When it went to the right past a big Juniper tree enough my wife saw it was a buck and tried to whisper "Shooter" which of course I couldn't hear but the buck did and stopped and looked straight at her. After a few moments it looked away and continued to the small water puddle back to our left. When it cleared the Juniper tree to my side I realized it was a buck not a doe. He stopped at the waters edge at 21 yrds and I released an arrow at 8:21 am. The sound of the Swhacker broad head hitting him was louder than I would have thought and seemed like it echoed! He jumped, kicked and took off tail tucked over the earthen dam of the water hole and we listened carefully and in a few moments thought we heard him crash. We forced ourselves to sit for 30 minutes before even going down to look for my arrow that I found covered in blood and buried about 6" in the ground. Following the blood trail about half way to where we found the buck down I saw motion to my left and had to run off what was either a coyote or Mexican gray wolf that looked like he was already scent tracking my buck! We found my Couse buck at about 60 yrds in a drainage double lunged.
This is my first ever Deer, a Couse Whitetail and first Archery kill. He's not real big, but real Couse deer aren't big anyway!