Decided to finally start to learn how to shoot a compound bow and hunt this year during the Carona Virus lock down. Its something I had always wanted to do but never found the time or budget to get started. I bought my bow on May 15th and started getting better and better.
I have lived in D-19 my whole life and have a pretty good idea of where the deer are during different times of the year in my area. Luckily I grew up hiking and can tell you where most of the water in the zone is so that part was easy but I had no idea about specific bedding locations or when exactly they are there.
I was lucky enough to convince the wife that I NEEDED some camera's to help with the scouting. After many many miles of hiking and thousands of photos I had an idea of which trails I wanted to hunt. I made a makeshift ground blind near my favorite and prepped it a week before opening day.
I was in the "blind" by 5:15 patiently waiting trying to psych myself up about the fact that I had put in the work and this might actually go down. At 6:20 I saw my 1st doe coming down the trail I wanted to shoot from at 19 yards followed by a small forky 2 more does and a bigger forky all they needed to do was continue down the trail to my shooting lane like they had on every video I have of this trail.
Apparently Deer don't listen. Before I knew it all 5 deer were within 10 yards of me walking right towards my blind. As I tried to slowly pull the bow back to shoot the bigger forky one of the does wheezed and they all scattered with the bigger of the two forkies going up the hill a bit above my 2nd shooting lane at 26 yards and just kind of waited for a minute or two before finally starting to walk back down. When he got in my shooting lane he was perfectly broadside and looking towards me trying to figure out what the doe saw. I leveled the bubble set my pin and let it go. He didn't even move until the arrow had already gone through him, he ran off and I heard him crash a few seconds later.
After about 30 minutes of trying to calm my nerves and wait to let him do his thing I went to where I shot him and was able to find my arrow buried into the hillside covered in blood. I knew where he had ran out so I started looking for blood, found a pretty good blood trail and was able to find him after about 5 minutes of looking once I lost the blood trail.
Found him piled up less than 50 yards from where I shot him. What a freaking 1st day ever of hunting. Now I get to slow down a little and find a better buck with my 2nd tag, if the forest opens back up. For my 1st buck I am pretty stoked.
Good Luck to everyone else!
Bonus picture of him on camera 2 days before.
I have lived in D-19 my whole life and have a pretty good idea of where the deer are during different times of the year in my area. Luckily I grew up hiking and can tell you where most of the water in the zone is so that part was easy but I had no idea about specific bedding locations or when exactly they are there.
I was lucky enough to convince the wife that I NEEDED some camera's to help with the scouting. After many many miles of hiking and thousands of photos I had an idea of which trails I wanted to hunt. I made a makeshift ground blind near my favorite and prepped it a week before opening day.
I was in the "blind" by 5:15 patiently waiting trying to psych myself up about the fact that I had put in the work and this might actually go down. At 6:20 I saw my 1st doe coming down the trail I wanted to shoot from at 19 yards followed by a small forky 2 more does and a bigger forky all they needed to do was continue down the trail to my shooting lane like they had on every video I have of this trail.
Apparently Deer don't listen. Before I knew it all 5 deer were within 10 yards of me walking right towards my blind. As I tried to slowly pull the bow back to shoot the bigger forky one of the does wheezed and they all scattered with the bigger of the two forkies going up the hill a bit above my 2nd shooting lane at 26 yards and just kind of waited for a minute or two before finally starting to walk back down. When he got in my shooting lane he was perfectly broadside and looking towards me trying to figure out what the doe saw. I leveled the bubble set my pin and let it go. He didn't even move until the arrow had already gone through him, he ran off and I heard him crash a few seconds later.
After about 30 minutes of trying to calm my nerves and wait to let him do his thing I went to where I shot him and was able to find my arrow buried into the hillside covered in blood. I knew where he had ran out so I started looking for blood, found a pretty good blood trail and was able to find him after about 5 minutes of looking once I lost the blood trail.
Found him piled up less than 50 yards from where I shot him. What a freaking 1st day ever of hunting. Now I get to slow down a little and find a better buck with my 2nd tag, if the forest opens back up. For my 1st buck I am pretty stoked.
Good Luck to everyone else!
Bonus picture of him on camera 2 days before.
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