Weekend hunting (1 Viewer)

[Semper]

ugh what a horrible weekend for hunting. Didn't get to go out on Saturday so Sunday was my only day. Me and two friends went together. One friend was in a blind to the north of us. I was in a blind with the other guy.

To start the morning off we got busted walking in to our blind. Two doe were bedded down about 15 yards from the blind. The of course ran off a little ways and commenced to blowing letting every deer in the area know we were there.

Around 8:50 a doe walked out of the woods and into range. My friend was up to shoot so he drew on her at about 40 yards and hit her. We sat down to wait, and I'm guessing 5 minutes later we get a text that my buddy had hit a doe also. Good morning so far right? Sigh...

So we wait about an hour and twenty minutes and decide now is the time to start tracking them. We go to the first doe see blood and white hair. I hated the white hair right away because I had a feeling he hit her low. 3 hours later and the blood trail ended at a road with no more sign anywhere on the other side. I think we may have pushed her too soon or she wasn't hit well. I went up and down the road a couple hundred yards on each side looking for sign. I found one track in the gravel/mud but that was it, nothing on the other side anywhere.

Back to the other blind and let's track this deer. Find a great blood spot on the ground and headed off with confidence. Later we found another big blood spot. So we kept tracking. We were using the gps and realized that while tracking the first deer we came very close to where this big blood spot was. So it seems we were pushing a wounded deer and scared the other who had bedded down to die.

2 hours later and still no deer. I'm literally crawling around on my hands and knees looking for blood drops. The blood trail ended and I'm now following footprints and crushed leaves. And then all sign just disappeared... I went back to the last spot, circled and circled the area and nothing.

I hate leaving a hit deer behind. I'm absolutely disgusted with not being able to find them. The two hunters are really feeling down.

 

[0rion]

yep....that's a terrible day. This past season my buddy shot the buck of a lifetime. Big Big 10 point well out past his ears and really tall tines. I guess I need to back up some to the beginning.
We camp every weekend through bow season.....3 day weekends every week and a 10 day stretch during the rut so we put a lot of time on stand usually. This was week 2 of the season. It was warm and was supposed to rain Saturday so Friday night we took a mulligan and stayed up half the night drinking beer around the fire since it looked like Saturday was gonna be a terrible day to hunt. We get up late and hung out in the camper for a while. The rain stopped about 1 pm so we decided to go ahead and go sit the rest of the day in the stand. I barely get in my stand and it starts raining again and blowing right in my face. I lasted about 2 hours and get down. I sent my buddy a text and told him I was done. Wet, miserable, and hung over.
I barely get to the camper and he sends me a text and tells me he has a big one down. I thought "yeah...right". He's just trying to get me to hike all the way back in to help him so he can laugh at me so I tell him I'm on my way but I had no intentions of falling for it so I laid down and took a nap. He shows up just after dark and has the bloody arrow with him. He did in fact shoot a monster and couldn't find it. It was a through and through a little high and a little back. I'm thinking liver. The next morning I skip hunting and go in with him to find it. It'd rained all night and washed all the blood away but he'd left his gloves and hat where he had found it the night before. We walked those ridges all day looking for that deer and never found it. When me and my son went shed hunting last week I walked them all again hoping to luck onto it but never did. That deer most likely went down and is in there somewhere. He said he thinks he kicked it the night before because he started tracking it too early. I've liver shot a deer before and it's a pretty deadly shot. The 1 deer I liver shot went a total of 40 yards and dropped. I watched the whole thing....he bled out as fast as any double lung deer I've shot. There is a very small window above that liver that he may have went through but it would be a 1 in a million shot to hit it there and not be a fatal hit.
I still feel bad about blowing him off but I honestly thought he was messing with me. We've done that kinda thing to each other in the past. We've since created the safe phrase "I'm frigin serious" if it happens again. haha