At 1030 Thursday morning i decided to hell with work (since i own the business i can do that) and decided to head to camp to try and fill my additional. Also convinced a buddy to come along. Not many nice days left before every sit is gonna be a cold one. Got to camp at 1130 and decided to scout 3 potential spots. The ladder stand looked decent with some clear fresh sign. Both the meadow platform and the river also locked promising. As i have already filled one tag i gave my friend first choice. I also confirmed with him that if i see a buck i should take it - confirmed. My friend is not a fan of heights so he chose the river and I chose the ladder stand.
He headed straight down to the river as they can be active down there at any time of day. I went back to the cabin as it was still early and read a novel i am in the middle of until about 230 pm and than headed to the stand. The area the stand overlooks almost never sees deer until the last hour of light as it overlooks a travel area that connects a bedding area to a food source.
View from the stand looking West:
View from the stand looking East:
It was fairly windy with the occasional gust really making the tree sway. Stand is 16 feet high and tree diameter at that height is roughly 12 inches. I was a little paranoid about tree sway affecting my ability to aim but it all worked out in the end. At 5:06 exactly 15 minutes before the end of legal a spike emerged from the trees on the west. He was clearly on a mission to get somewhere. He came in tight to the stand and by the time i got the crosshairs on him he was 2/3s of the way across the open area and 7 yards directly in front of the stand. I grunted him to a stop and in a fraction of second a half dozen different thoughts went through my mind. My Crossbow is zeroed for 27 yards - he is at 7 yards - i have never taken a shot at 7 yards - how low do i aim to compensate. 7 yards out and i am 5 yards up - pretty steep angle - where do i want the bolt to enter. Somehow all the variables were input into my brain and i held 8 inches low of where i wanted to hit and shot - tree sway did not seem to matter. He donkey kicked and took off into the thick stuff immediately north of the open area and about 30 seconds later i heard a tell tale crash.
Texted my buddy and told him i was pretty sure i just filled his buck tag. Found the bolt right away and it looked good:
We waited about 30 minutes and than followed a pretty clear blood trail for 71 yards to find him like this:
The entrance wound is right about the middle of the blood patch about 2/3s of the way up his body. The exit wound on the off side is about 5 inches lower:
Ending up catching the near side lung close to the top of the lung and the offside lung just about dead center. All and all a good day to play hooky.
