bowhunterfanatic
Well-Known Member
This has been the worst summer / early fall of my life from a camera standpoint. I thought last year was rough but this year has been even worse. I'm not sure I have a picture of a single deer that will crack 125" this year and maybe not even 120". I spent the first half of the week checking / moving some cameras trying to get a single picture of a deer that interested me. I knew the forecast for Sunday looked great and if I could just locate one I'd have a chance this evening. I didn't manage to turn anything up so I decided this evening to hunt a spot that has traditionally always been good for buck sightings but tough to get them killed with a bow. I had one really mature deer on camera in the area this summer. He hasn't shown up in a while on camera but I hoped maybe he was still around. I had some does and fawns in the field by 5 pm so I figured I'd probably at least see a couple bucks before dark. I almost shot a doe around 5:30 but fortunately she never quite stopped in one of my lanes. By 6:00 I had probably seen 15 or so deer including two small bucks but they had all fed through the field I was in and crossed the hedgerow into the field behind me. I started scanning the edge of the cutover in front of me looking for more deer when this guy popped out at like 50 yards. I took a quick look at him and decided he was plenty nice enough for me if he presented me a shot. He slowly limped his way up the field edge towards me and stopped in my big shooting lane at 35. I steadied my pin and let it fly. The shot looked great but I was pretty worried because it appeared I got very little penetration. He trotted about 70 yards back into the cutover and as soon as he stopped he started the death wobble. Turns out he must've been an EHD survivor because he's completely missing half of one hoof, and it looks like the half he still has was trying to slough off. He was as skinny as a rail so I'm not certain he would've made it through the upcoming winter. All in all I'm tickled with him and pumped to have got him with my bow!
