Well, our season just started on September 15th. I went Monday morning(opening day)..misjudged the time and ended up being a half hour later than I'd planned. Got blown by nosy doe walking to stand.(Funny, if I had been rifle hunting, I'd have just shot her and been done for the morning)Anyway, got in my stand overlooking a bodacious persimmon tree loaded with fruit. Small buttonhead walks in right where I want the deer to walk. Oh boy I'm thinking Mama will be right behind him.....Not!! No other deer that morning. Unusual for a deer to be an orphan so early so maybe Mama was the deer that blew earlier. Who knows? Next hunt Wednesday evening in a climber near other persimmon trees 100 yards from first spot. Four point bedded 60 yards away starts moving around, gives me several good opportunities as he walks right into my shooting zones. I practice mentally shooting him picking the different angles of entry etc.(you know how you do). Anyway, he's not on the menu.We'll let him grow a few years. I'm after does or big bucks. Thursday morning different spot ..nada . Can't hunt again until Friday after work. Leave the office at 5:00, fight the rush hour traffic, get to the farm by 6:15, shower and change clothes,move quickly to the same stand I hunted opening morning which is up against a bedding area.In the stand by 6:40. About 7:00 4 deer materialize. At this point I am getting very busy. I know what an air traffic controller must go through as I am trying hard to keep track of all these deer. They are milling about looking for persimmons on the ground. At least one is a button buck and from my elevated perch it's hard to tell which one is the mature doe much less keep track of her whereabouts. Finally she gives me a broadside about 25 yards away, but there is a tree limb (on my tree) even with her middle. I make a quick calculation that since I'm using my middle pin the arrow will pass over the limb or at least it should. I hold just behind the shoulder hear the thunk. Then there are deer evrywhere moving in all directions. My deer with arrow in it's side runs into a thick hedgerow. Almost immediately a deer runs out of the other side of the same hedgerow running low like she's been hit but with no visible arrow. (I use the carbonaeros the are dipped and crested with white and orange and are very easy to see) Now as soon as my deer ran with arrow visible I'm thinking the worst...that I've stuck it in the shoulder blade. I wait a few minutes , then get down and inspect the ground where the deer was standing. Nothing , no blood,tissue, hair,nothing...great, just great. Another wounded deer. I continue working the area where she entered the hedgerow and find two drops of red blood on a leaf waist high. It's thicker than I care to go into at this point so I go around the other side and look for an exit trail. Still nothing.I had bush hogged a path around the edge of the overgrown pasture that I'm now standing in so I start walking in the direction of the fleeing deer. After about 35 yards, there she is dead on her side. Rolling her over I can see where the mechanical tried to exit on the other side . It looks like your fist pushing out the fur from the inside. Off to the cleaning shed with a much lighter step, now. Inside the deer the story unfolds. The broken off arrow ( about a third of it)has broken a rib entering, pierced the heart and gone into ribs on the off side just above the sternum just pushing out the hide. Stats: 120 pounds 2 1/2 years old. Let the games begin!! Thanks for indulging me. Let's hear from the rest. Good hunting!
