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My First Buck With A Bow 11/12/11

steveOh

Junior Member
750
114
Dayton Area
After 10 years of hunting with a bow I finally downed my first buck Saturday Nov. 12th on private property in Adams Co. I have passed up many small bucks in the past waiting for one of those bucks that would go 140+, qualifying for the Buckeye Big Buck Club record book. Well I just couldn’t wait any longer. Here is how it went down:

For the afternoon hunt I headed for one of our stands in the north end of the west woodlot. Upon arriving I noticed that some of the neighbor’s cows were in the area around my stand. In the past if they see you they will come around you and hang out all day spoiling you chances of seeing any deer. So I decided to go to a ladder stand in the south end of the same woods that we haven’t hunted yet.

We moved it a few weeks ago closer to the corner where deer have been known to cross at the fence where the drainage ditch goes under it. It is thick and gnarly in there with lots of greenbrier and vines. The stand is set up in a huge tree with 18 inch split trunks. It is most suitable for a west or north wind. The fence crossing is to my left. Saturday it was very windy and swirling from the SSW. I climbed up and settled in for what I thought would be an uneventful afternoon. If anything, I thought, maybe I could see where the deer were crossing before they winded me and keep that info in mind for later on in gun season.

As I sat there killing time eating snacks, shooting distances with my range finder, and watching squirrels, I suddenly realized that I haven’t taken any practices shots with my bow in about a week. I went over in my mind to draw and bend at the waist and to aim low because it was a downhill shot. I knew that the only chance for a shot before a deer would wind me would be about my 11 o’clock position. Anything left of that I was blocked by one of the huge trucks of the tree that I was in.

Then it happened! I was sitting down and the bow was on a hook on the tree. I just so happened to look over my left shoulder, I don’t know why, I don’t know if I heard something or if I just was looking around. I saw a buck, just 10 yards from my tree and upwind. He walked slowly right to the base of the tree. My heart raced, it was a big bodied deer with a rack outside of his ears. I knew that he didn’t have tall tines but what the heck; I needed to break the ice and try to take this buck! He stopped at the base of the tree and stood there for a few seconds, I was expecting him to snort and take off. To my surprise he slowly turned around and took a few steps and then turned to his right and started to gradually pick his way down hill through the greenbrier.

I then stood up on my week and shaky knees and grabbed my bow off the holder. I hooked my release to the string loop. The buck was circling down below me and was approaching my 11 o’clock. It was now or never. I raised the bow and started to draw back. I don’t know if I was concentrating on the buck too much or was it just my nerves but I couldn’t come to full draw! I quickly came to my senses and mustered up the energy to come to full draw. I found my anchor point and lowered the bow down and put the 20 yard pin on the slowly moving buck. Once the pin settled behind his shoulder I touched off the release and saw the most beautiful sight, the red Nocturnal lighted nock glowing right on target! The buck bolted down to the ditch and ran about 30 yards before climbing the six foot bank and disappearing through the thick stuff with the nock shining like Rudolph’s red nose. After a couple seconds I thought I heard him crash. All of this happened in less than a minute, from the time I saw him until the time I thought I heard him fall!

I quickly sat down and the shakes started kicking in. I looked at my watch and it was 4:15. After about 10 minutes, I decided to climb down and located my hunting partner. We needed to find this deer before it got dark. By the time we hooked up and started out to the place where I thought I heard him crash it was about 45 minutes. We slowly eased along the property line fence and when we crested a little rise there he was laying dead right at the fence. Not the biggest racked deer in the county, but my first buck with a bow.

Martin Panther 63#
Easton XX75 2216
100 gr Spitfire

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Dannmann801

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
10,640
191
Springboro
That's a FINE buck Steve, congratulations! I'da taken that shot for sure!
Glad to see a fellow hunter of Adams County being successful, that's for sure :smiley_coolpeace:
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
That's an AWESOME first bow buck. Congrats man. And thanks for sharing such a cool story.
 

RedCloud

Super Moderator
Super Mod
17,381
193
North Central Ohio
Great story.

Heck of a buck and to have it be the first bow buck has to be the greatest. It doesn't get any better then that.

Congrats on a fine buck.