My 2nd Deer – A Doe On My First Day Out of Archery Season
While New York State’s archery hunting season began this past Saturday, I was watching my brother for the weekend and not able to hit the woods. Fortunately, I was given Monday & Tuesday off from work & the weather cooperated enough to allow me to head out Monday.
I’ve been hunting for around five years, but hadn’t gotten a deer until just last year (when I shot a button buck on Veteran’s Day of archery season).
This year I’d been telling folks I only have two things on my mind for this fall: marathon training & hunting season. I expected the pursuit of both to take up most of my fall, but I took the deer below at ~15 yards Monday with a Matthews Switchback bow:
Additional pictures can be found in my photo gallery.
When I woke at 6 AM, it was 43 degrees out. I’d loaded most of my gear into the truck the night before, as well as my ATV onto it’s trailer, but left the ATV/trailer uncoupled & in the garage to keep it dry. When I hooked up it Monday morning, I noticed the taillights weren’t on. While I don’t use it much in the dark & they typically don’t test that for inspection, I know the lights have worked at some point since I bought it. The wiring to the taillights does pass through the part of the trailer that can fold onto itself (for upright storage), so they may have been damaged from that. The blinkers, hazards & brake lights all worked though, so I headed out anyways.
Attempting to get the taillights working took about ten minutes, so by the time I made it out to the hunting grounds, it was already 6:50AM – a little later than I liked. Sunup was technically at just shy of 7:30, but when I reached the end of the path on the ATV at ~7:00, I didn’t even needs the lights on the ATV.
As I was nearing the area to park the ATV, I saw the first deer for the day. I only saw the tail end of it as it bounded away, so I’m not sure if it was a doe or buck, but it looked like it had some size to it. Immediately I was mad at myself for being late into the woods & potentially missing an opportunity.
It was very quite & much darker inside the woods as I headed back to my stand. It took me about ten minutes to walk in the darkness without making too much noise. (From “Shed to “S4″ on the map of stands.) As I walked, I heard something else walking in the woods as well, but never caught a glimpse of it. I arrived at the stand much later than I would have liked to – ~7:10, but climbed the ladder and got setup for the day.
Nothing noteworthy happened for the first 40 minutes (except I won the first game of solitaire I played on my iPod). Around 7:45, a chipmunk about 25 feet away started squawking louder than I’ve ever heard one squawk before. He continued to make noise for a couple minutes. It was annoying to the point where I was contemplating yelling at him to stop or at least throwing something at him. I’m not going to lie – the thought of a chipmunk pinned to a tree with an arrow holding him there crossed my mind as well.
Right as I thought I’d had enough of the chipmunk, I heard a loud crack behind and to the right of me. I knew it wasn’t the chipmunk & swiveled my head around to see a decent sized doe looking right at me from around 25 yards away. There wasn’t much I could do without getting busted by the deer. Any shot at it was obstructed by far too many branches to even contemplate taking one. While the doe was looking at me, I was able to slowly slip my iPod into my pocket without spoking it. It casually walked around behind me for a couple minutes and then disappeared to the right of me, only to show itself again at about 40 yards away in an opening to my right where I’d seen two other deer during scouting this year. It only lingered there for a short period before leaving.
The woods remained quiet for the next hour. Right about 9 two more doe walked from my right to behind me, essentially the opposite of the path I saw the first doe walk. They fed on the leaves from low tree branches for a couple minutes. Both were directly behind my stand, up to 50 yards away and annoying me the whole time that they weren’t in front of me. The bigger of the two worked its way to 25 yards or so directly behind my stand, at which point I stood up and turned around with my bow in hand. It moved side to side behind my stand several times, causing me to have to change the side of the tree I was looking out and holding my bow. In doing so, I hit the arrow I had knocked against the tree twice, but never spooked the deer.
I watched the it approach closer and closer. Because of a downed tree, didn’t expect it to get any nearer, but was very surprised when it jumped between the branches of the tree that comprised a “Y” and continued to feed. At this point it was between what I thought was 15 and 20 yards away, turned broadside and stopped to feed in an opening. I leaned to the side of the tree, brought my bow up, placed the 20 yard pin on it & pulled the trigger on my release.
If you’re not a hunter or are bothered by the taking of animals, you may want to stop reading at this point…
I watched the arrow fly to the deer and while it hit, had a feeling it wasn’t a clean shot to the vitals. Immediately the doe let out a bleat that terrifyingly filled the woods. The deer dropped to the ground, but I knew it was hurt. It didn’t move for a short time, but then I saw my arrow sticking out of it move as it tried to get up and failed. It tried again and failed. I thought maybe I’d gut shot it and it was just laying down, but the arrow typically passes right through a deer and they typically run for quite a while before lying down when gut shot. I quickly began to suspect I’d hit it in the spine.
I remained in the tree for a while and watched the downed deer. It tried to get up several times and failed. I could hear it breathing heavily and sighing. I could see my arrow protruding from it. The other doe remained in the area and circled around to within ten feet of me. I made no attempt to hide myself, and it didn’t care I was there. I considered shooting it as well, but felt bad enough about not having cleanly shot the first and decided against it. It watched me for a minute or two and slowly walked away.
I could still see the first downed deer laying on the ground, now with its head up. I had to do something, so I slowly climbed down from my stand and made my way towards it. It finally saw me now, approaching from about 10 yards away. It tried to get up several more times, but failed. I approached to within 5 yards of it, with another arrow knocked in my bow at my side. The deer tried to get up yet again and failed once more, but this time remained partially propped up on its front two legs, broadside to me. I put a second arrow through it’s side, lungs and clean out the other side. Now it fell down for the last time and started to breathe it’s last breaths. As it did, I turned and headed for the ATV.
In retrospect, I know exactly what went wrong – I made two mistakes: first, I was leaning out the side of the stand & therefore not level. Second, when I arrived at the deer and looked back to the stand, I realized I misjudged the distance. Instead of the 20 yards I thought it was, it was just under 15 yards. The combination of the non-vertical bow & incorrect distance added up to a shot that was high and towards the rear of the deer – I could see the now-broken off arrow from the first shot stuck in the spine right where I suspected it hit.
The bleat the deer let out was truly disheartening. I’ve never heard anything as loud or like that before. I don’t plan on telling a lot of people about the shot, nor do they need to know, or will they even understand. “I shot a deer. It was my second deer. It was a little bigger than the last.” – in the end that’s all they need to know.
After years of unsuccessfully chasing deer, the one I got last year was quite a rush. I’m not sure if it was the poorly placed shot, that there was no one to share the hunt with this year, or if it was because I was only a couple hours into my season, but it wasn’t quite as exciting this time. I’m still happy and proud to have gotten a deer, but the one I got last year was a lot bigger of a rush. The pictures don’t really do it justice, but this one was a little bigger than the one I got last year. I still have a tag to shoot a deer of either sex and a doe tag left which I can use both of during archery season – there’s a couple big bucks wandering around that woods & I can’t wait to see & shoot one of them!