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My "Lucky" Buck

LonewolfNopack

Junior Member
1,503
127
The woods
The morning was November third. It was the tail end of my four days of vacation time, which was my first mini vacation of deer hunting for the year. I took the days off a month ahead of time based completely on the moon. Living in farm country, my house is always infested with bean bugs this time of year. For those of you who live in farm country, I am sure you know how bad they smell and how thick they can get in the fall. Well somehow while getting ready to walk out the door that morning, one of those bugs flew into my mouth and I swallowed it. It was a horrible experience and I ended up throwing up all over the place, haha. I really hoped that wasn't how my morning was going to go.

I arrived at my spot, and got to my tree as usual. I don't like to drop names but bought a new Millennium stand this year that I carry in and out with me every hunt, and I walked it the 33 feet up the tree where my bracket was waiting. If you don't currently own a Millennium, your missing out by the way. Comfort is huge to me and ditching the LW for the Millennium is the best treestand investment I may ever make.

So I am now sitting in the early morning darkness staring up at the starry sky at one of these stars that you see sometimes that is unusually bright. I always wonder what those kind really are. I am sitting there staring at it trying to figure it out and ever so slowly starts to move across the sky and starts falling extremely slow, eventually burning up into the atmosphere. I have never observed such a bright shooting star or one that fell so slowly in my life. I wished right then that a mature buck come my way, and if so, I make a clean killing shot on him. Lucky star.

As it begins to get daylight but still pretty dark I hear something flying behind me and next thing I know an Owl comes swooping down and lands in the tree in front of me. It sits there awhile before it flies off. It was awesome to see so close. Lucky Owl.

It's daylight now, 7 45 to be exact. I have not saw much activity, one lone done a few hundred yards away. With the heavy dew that morning the leaves and woods were extremely quite. So I'm tucked tight and secure in my Millennium, not daring to move a muscle as I know a deer could be right underneath me before I know it. I'm not willing to take a risk of fidgeting around this time of year. I hear an ever slight sound to my left, perhaps a sparrow. I slowly turn my head to the left where the thicket is, and I see horns, nice ones!! That was the first and only time I looked at his rack. I started something new this year of not hanging my bow up. Instead I connect it to my belt with a snap clip. Much less movement required and a lot less chance of a deer seeing you reaching for the bow when the moment of truth comes. So I silently unhooked my bow from the clip and get ready. The buck continues down the trail it is on, which happens to be my only shooting lane into the thicket. When he walks behind some briar he stops to browse, and that's my que to draw my bow. I didn't even need to stand up. My bow is at full draw now and the buck is still browsing. I rest the cam of my bow on my knee to relieve holding pressure. I had a lighted knock on my arrow which was complete junk. It was already lit and glowing bright red from just me moving the arrow. Finally he continues down trail and I stop him with the typical "Meh". He stops right in front of a tree with an old rub on it which I marked at 20 yards, perfect broadside shot. I lift the bow off my knee and attempt to get everything right in my head, and release the arrow.

Thwak!! I watch the arrow hit the deer and he stumbles, then sprints 70 yards and stops. I lost sight of him after that. I knew instantly that my shot was further forward then I wanted, up into the shoulder area. I wait awhile and climb down to look at the impact sight. My arrow is laying right where I shot him at, or at least part of it. The arrow was broken off on the broadhead end and after holding it up to one of my other arrows, I was sickened to see I only got 12" of penetration.

I immediately leave and come back four hours later. I am a big believer in luck, JuJu whatever you want to call it. I had my gutting knife and drag on the porch ready to go. At the last minute I opted not to take it because I knew if I did and had it all ready to go when I was tracking him, then I would never find him. It would just be too perfect. So I left all that at the house before I headed back out. I had time to do some thinking and had come to the conclusion that if I hit where I think I did, the 12" should be enough for a double lung and he should be dead close. I start on the trail and I am following pen drops. I am leaving white paper tracks everywhere I find blood. Its 72 degrees. I was starting to get that hollow feeling that it was going to be a long couple days. I follow the drops for 20 yards, and then completely lose them. After a fruitless attempt to locate any more blood, I walk down to a steep bank that overlooks the creek. I was hoping I would find him laying dead in the creek. Nothing.

So I go back to the last piece of paper where I had marked blood and got down on my belly. There has got to be blood somewhere. I am crawling around on my belly, flipping over every leaf and looking up underneath every blade of grass. Finally I find another speck of blood, then another. I stand up now and the blood trails starts to open up some. On one leaf I find a pile of red bubbly with pink throffty chunks in it. My heart finally starts beating again!! I keep following the now decent blood trail and see a huge smear of blood on the side of a tree. Hmmm. I look up and there he laid!! I had walked right by him the first time when I went down to check the creek. Amazing.

The first thing I did was thank God, and I then I thanked the buck for his life and said a prayer. That's always the first thing I do when I kill any deer. I have far my respect for deer then I do most people. As it turns out the deer only went 70 yards. The last time I saw him on stand was right where he was laying. He must have fell and I just couldn't see. I would guess dead in about 4 or 5 seconds. The trick had busted through one shoulder and almost came out the opposite shoulder. A great double lung in the front part of the rib cage. Beautiful. The double throat patch, stunning as well.

I call my buddy and share the good news. He came and brought a knife to gut the deer with, and helped me drag the deer out. Before the drag though and after I was done gutting, I went down to the creek to wash the blood from my hands. I reached my hands into the water to grab some wet leaves to scrub my hands with, and feel something hard. I pull it up and it was an old Horseshoe!! Lucky Horseshoe!! That was my third lucky charm of the day. It may sound silly to some, but little things like that give me hope. I will never forget it. Hope you all enjoy the story and get as lucky as I did the rest of your season.






 
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bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
Great read Seth! An instant classic my friend. Job well done on a fantastic buck! :smiley_clap:

PS: Those Millennium's are the cat's ass ain't they!?! I spent 11 hours in one today and you just can't beat them for longevity on stand. There are easier stands to hang and manuever, but none come close to the comfort. Glad you are enjoying yours!