backstrap
10-18-2004, 05:10 PM
I had a couple of tough lessons learned this weekend bowhunting. The first one happened Fri. evening. The weather was rain and wind. So instead of hunting from a treestand I opted for a little still-hunting. After a couple hours I spotted a doe probably a hundred yards off, heading for a bean field. So with not much daylight left, I decided to cut her off before she entered the field. So with the wind in my face I made my stalk. I made it to the bottom of a creek crossing, and made myself as comfortable as possible. And there I waited. As I sat on the ground I noticed the wind was blowing from every possible angle. It was too late, about the time I noticed the change in the wind I saw movement from the corner of my eye... you guessed it....a white-tail waving bye. Lesson learned... wind currents tend to swirl around in creek-bottoms:(
Sat. morning with the wind nearly blowing me from my tree-stand, I opted once again for a ground assault. Roughly three hours passed when movement off to my right caught my eye. It didn't take me long to realize what it was. Turkeys, 11 in all, with three huge toms bringing up the rear. They saw me and took off running, towards the corner of another bean field. Again I tried to cut them off by waiting at the corner of the field. I wanted to get a better look at those toms! Well, the turkeys never showed. I was just about ready to stand up, when I looked to my left, and seen a solid six pointer cutting across the field, quartering away from me at around 35 yards. With cross-bow up I whistled for him to stop, he didn't I managed a bleat with my voice, he never stopped. I yelled HEY! And as soon as he stopped the arrow was on his way. Unfortunatly so was he. He basically walked through my shot, to make matters worse the wind caught my bolt and I hit him in the right-rear leg. Inbetween the knee and the hoof. I was absolutly sick!! The buck took off on a dead run. And I went to retrieve my bolt. I had a little blood on it, and only one blade from my splitfire was opened. by this time it was 10:30 so I called my buddy and we agreed to grab some lunch, and let things settle down a bit. After lunch I told him to go ahead and hunt, I was gonna go search the bean field and the woods for any sign of a hit. Nightfall came and I didn't so much as find a single drop of blood. Sort of bitter-sweet I guess.
Sunday I decided I wanted to hunt the same field where I shot at the buck to maybe catch a glimpse of him. Hopefully he'd be all-right. At 8:30 in the morning I had a doe and fawn walk directly underneath me. I didn't even put the cross-bow up. I was wanting to find that buck. 9:00 came and across the field I noticed movement in the thicket. I saw a flicker of a tail, then sun reflecting off an antler. I put up my binoculars, and then I was truely relieved. There he was walking the field-edge, he had only a slightest of a limp. That was a big sigh of relief!!!! He was going to be allright after all. Lesson learned........a steady walking target, a reasonably longer than I like shot, and a steady 30 mile-an-hour wind, really doesn't put the odds in your favor.......Believe me.... LESSON LEARNED!!!!!!!!!!!
Sat. morning with the wind nearly blowing me from my tree-stand, I opted once again for a ground assault. Roughly three hours passed when movement off to my right caught my eye. It didn't take me long to realize what it was. Turkeys, 11 in all, with three huge toms bringing up the rear. They saw me and took off running, towards the corner of another bean field. Again I tried to cut them off by waiting at the corner of the field. I wanted to get a better look at those toms! Well, the turkeys never showed. I was just about ready to stand up, when I looked to my left, and seen a solid six pointer cutting across the field, quartering away from me at around 35 yards. With cross-bow up I whistled for him to stop, he didn't I managed a bleat with my voice, he never stopped. I yelled HEY! And as soon as he stopped the arrow was on his way. Unfortunatly so was he. He basically walked through my shot, to make matters worse the wind caught my bolt and I hit him in the right-rear leg. Inbetween the knee and the hoof. I was absolutly sick!! The buck took off on a dead run. And I went to retrieve my bolt. I had a little blood on it, and only one blade from my splitfire was opened. by this time it was 10:30 so I called my buddy and we agreed to grab some lunch, and let things settle down a bit. After lunch I told him to go ahead and hunt, I was gonna go search the bean field and the woods for any sign of a hit. Nightfall came and I didn't so much as find a single drop of blood. Sort of bitter-sweet I guess.
Sunday I decided I wanted to hunt the same field where I shot at the buck to maybe catch a glimpse of him. Hopefully he'd be all-right. At 8:30 in the morning I had a doe and fawn walk directly underneath me. I didn't even put the cross-bow up. I was wanting to find that buck. 9:00 came and across the field I noticed movement in the thicket. I saw a flicker of a tail, then sun reflecting off an antler. I put up my binoculars, and then I was truely relieved. There he was walking the field-edge, he had only a slightest of a limp. That was a big sigh of relief!!!! He was going to be allright after all. Lesson learned........a steady walking target, a reasonably longer than I like shot, and a steady 30 mile-an-hour wind, really doesn't put the odds in your favor.......Believe me.... LESSON LEARNED!!!!!!!!!!!