Posted By: swaman
My Sons first Bow Buck - 10/31/17 06:18 AM
This past Friday (October 27th) at my lease in North Texas I hunted that morning in the howling wind. I was lucky enough to see several deer but no shooters. It had been that way for me all bow season. Nothing good up to that point on camera either! After the morning hunt I retrieved my card out of my camera and FINALLY a shooter buck. He was coming into the feeder the past 2 evenings in a row. So later that afternoon I got settled in my tripod chair that is located against a tree about 20 yards from my feeder and started the wait. About 6:15 pm he came out! I knew he was somewhere in the 150 class and a definite shooter for a bow. I had taken the best buck of my life ( 160" with a rifle ) the previous year so at that point I decided I would call my 20 year old son to come down and see if this buck would reappear the next day. I called him that night and he made the drive a few hours later. He was in the tripod at first light on Saturday morning with several bucks showing just not the target buck. He made his way to the stand around 3:30 that afternoon and started the wait for that evening. At 6:15 p.m. I received the text that he had arrowed him with a pass thru shot. My heart was in my throat I was so excited for him. We waited about 1 hour to see if we could see anything as we expected him to be piled up within 100 yards. Not the case at all! We tracked him for 2 hours very slowly until we decided to pull off and wait. We went back to camp to eat and give him a chance to lay up. At that point I was very concerned about the retrieval of this deer and called Texas Hunting Forum Member Harvey (Handle "Hman") and ask him if he would make the 2 hour drive out to ranch with his Blood Dog to help. He agreed and around 12:15 a.m. we went back out to the woods where his Catahoula picked up the scent right away. within 1 hour we came across FRESH blood. I realized the deer was on the move again and not dead as I would have thought so we pulled off again and went to camp to sleep for a couple of hours It was close to 3 a.m. at this point! We were back in the woods looking again with Harvey and his dog by 8 a.m. After an exhaustive search we found the buck half a mile from where he was originally shot dead in a creek. The coyotes had already got to him but we were all thrilled beyond belief to have this deer and to put a tag on him. This was my sons first Bow buck and the Taxidermist scored him at 151.5. Cant thank Harvey (Hman) enough for his help and proud of my son and all of our buddies that spent hours in the woods looking to retrieve his first bow buck. You can see on his face how excited and proud he is. Sorry for the long story but im still pumped for my son.
