First big game animal ever!

[Lark Bunting]

Cross posted, so sorry if you've read this story already...

My son and I had left camp at 1:00 sharp after enjoying a filling lunch. I literally jumped up out of my chair and told my son, "Grab your stuff, I have a feeling we're going to get one this afternoon". We walked north from camp as we hadn't gone that way yet. We made our way in a circle to the west then back to the south as I wanted to go check out a meadow we had seen that morning but the wind was not in our favor. Half way to the meadow the wind shifted again so we found a huge rock outcropping and sat in the shade. We sat there for 20 minutes checking the wind about every 30 seconds and I got that feeling again..."Buddy, grab your bow, we need to go".

As we were walking quietly my son looked up at me and asked, "Dad, what's the matter?". I replied, "I am a little frustrated, we've done so much research on elk and just couldn't get it done. Everyone says we should be hunting smart, not hard. I don't know how to hunt smart for deer...I think we will just have to get lucky..."

<whisper> "FREEZE!!!!!!!!!"

This was when we rounded the corner of another rock outcropping. I watched the doe jump to her feet and just stand there frozen.

I had time to range her out to 22 yards. I shifted my feet slightly, knocked an arrow, attached my release and drew back. I put my 20 yard pin right in the middle of the V, took a deep breath and exhaled and slowly tensed my back muscled and the release let go. It hit a little low but I was shooting uphill and I tried visualizing the exit channel and knew I had just hit both lungs. She turned 180° and ran down hill. She was near a boulder and ran behind it so we couldn't see anything, just heard her crashing through the trees for a second...maybe two.

I turned to my son and mouthed the words..."Holy Crap...did that just happen?!" He high-fived me a couple times, quietly, and I dropped my pack at my feet. I looked at my watch, 2:46 pm. I marked a tree with ribbon and had my son mark one next to him, I also marked my GPS. I then walked up to where the deer was standing and marked a tree. I could see my arrow so I marked it as well and saw it was covered in bubbly blood.

I told my son to go back to where we were standing for the shot and stand by my pack. I ranged him just to verify it was 22 yards and then joined him to grab a snack and talk about what just happened. It had been 30 minutes already. I was amazed at how quickly it had passed.

We grabbed the bows and packs and went to look for blood.

That's when I noticed that there was no puddle where the deer had been hit. We knew the immediate travel path as the ground was disturbed. I finally saw the first speck of blood. It was less than a dime in diameter.

I asked my son to tell me what he remembered seeing and he confirmed a good hit just above the leg...and reminded me of the bubbly blood on the fletching.

We marked every drop of blood down the mountain, as this was the first time I've ever done this I was not taking any chances and I knew we would be picking up the flagging tape on the way out.

The deer ran downhill toward a confluence of two creeks. We tracked her pretty well to the second creek crossing. I found a pretty big blood stain on a downed log just on the other side of the creek. Then, it just disappeared.

We looked right, left, straight, started a radial grid search, backtracked our footsteps to see if we missed something, went back to the last know spot of blood. I almost threw up at this point. The knot in my stomach got worse after thinking of the tens...if not hundreds of threads I've read about lost animals on various forums.

I finally walked about 30' up hill and to the left and found a big blood spot, then walked another 10' and saw her. She had a long snakey tube coming out of her nearside shoulder... and I was in shock thinking intestines were coming out the shoulder. Turned out, it was the foamy blood coming out the nearside lung. Relief, Joy, Sadness, Respect, Shakes, Hugs...

It was one hell of an adventure!

I don't think we jumped her too soon. I took the standard protocol and knew it was a good hit. As it turned out, we found her .34 miles from our camp. I'm guessing she didn't even run 400 yards after the hit but when you're in the woods looking around...she could have been anywhere. I was extremely relieved when I found her and give a LOT of credit to my son for keeping his head in the game and looking as hard as he did for the tiny blood droplets. I am going to replace broadheads this week just in case it happened to be a result of them to finish out my elk hunting season.

This was my Grandfather's hunting knife. It is a Solingen knife that he last used in 1971. My mom was pregnant with me when he died of a heart attack at the age of 48. He was an avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman and too was an Aeronautical Engineer. My mother gave me the knife two years ago and I had to rebuild the handle as it was broken. It was an honor to use this knife to field dress my first big game animal.



My son wanted to have a moment before the field dressing began.

[ElkNut1]

Tom, awesome, you two did it!!!! That is a great success for you & your son to experience! I couldn't be happier for the two of you! A huge congrats!!

ElkNut1

[cocarp]

Great omen to your grandpa. I'm sure he would have been proud!

[Gutpile]

That's great Lark !

[Elkduds]

Congratulations, good job on the search. Sounds like you two learned a lot about the aftermath of an archery shot. Your story reminded me very much of my 1st doe w a bow. That one ran straight toward my car, I found her 50 yds from where I parked.

[LckyTylr]

That's fantastic! Glad it all came together for you.

When is Junior up to bat?

[twinkieman]

Grandpa had to be smiling down, seeing you use his knife. Congrats!!!

[itsnlkthing]

Congratulations, awesome and well deserved!

[Ponyboy_jonas]

Every deer is a trophy. Congrats!

[elkaholic]

Congratulations and great story.