My Suicidal Buck

gillettehunter

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Some of you may remember that I hunted a great Roan last year in RSA with a crossbow. My good wife that that would make a good Christmas present last year. So I had a nice new Scorypd crossbow there Christmas morning. I thought this deer hunting season would be a good time to try it out. The Scorypd is a reverse draw crossbow and I'm getting around 410 fps with it. I can get to 50 yds on my back lawn so I did some tuning on arrows and broadheads and went hunting.
To start this off my physical condition sucks right now. I had both knees replaced In June. The Dr says I should be 70% healed by mid Oct. Archery/crossbow season opens Sept 1 in my area. I also have a hernia. I had surgery for that yesterday. Hence time to do some typing... That means I'm not u to a lot of lifting or walking long distances or climbing up and down hills....
There is a ranch N of Gillette that I can hunt on that has both whitetails and mulies. I started off on a tree stand on the So. end of the property. Opening AM I was in place 30 min before daylight up in a cottonwood tree. This stand is situated to face N. Most of the deer are feeding on the neighbors hay field to the So. When it gets daylight some of them come across the fence to bed on the property that I can hunt. Just after daylight a whitetail doe, fawn and small buck come across, but are too far to the East even if I wanted to. Then came several mule deer along the same path. Looking So I could see close to 20 deer still in the field. Then the coyotes started to howl. Several different locations. The deer started to get nervous and then I spotted a coyote out in the field. He split the deer into 2 groups and eventually moved them out of the field way to the West of me. No shot opportunities, but I likely saw around 35 deer total plus the coyote.
A few days later I decided to try in in the evening. Much like the AM hunt I had coyotes moving deer around. I had a nice 5X4 whitetail at 80 yds, but just a little far for me. I saw one doe whitetail with 4 fawns.... Likely coyotes got a doe and this one had adopted the fawns.... I had several does and fawns in range, but no bucks. Again I saw probably 35 head of deer. Nice evening in a tree...
On the far N end of the property is another tree stand. I thought it might be good to try there and at least see what was around. Larry my hunting buddy went with me. He wanted to watch a meadow and field about 3/4 of a mile from me. At this location I wasn't sure of the best way to enter the stand. We parked the truck on the East side of a bluff where there is a saddle that I could slip down into the valley and over to the tree stand 3-400 yds away. We scouted it carefully to try and not spook anything near where I was going down the hill. Nothing in the way that we could see.
Went back to the truck and loaded my gear up. I cocked the crossbow but did not put a bolt on the string. The hill was steep and no use looking for trouble. Water, bolts, knife and saw into my backpack to go to the tree stand. As I left Larry drove to a vantage point to the So to see what might come out to feed there. I walked over the saddle very slowly. My knees didn't like the hill. About half way down I heard something and looked up to see 2 mule deer trotting away from me. I grabbed the laser rangefinder and watched them stop at 85 yds. One was a mature deer that turned out to be a 4X3 western count mule deer and the other a spike. I slowly took off my pack and saw a 3rd deer, a doe much closer. She went South to put her behind part of the bluff and out of sight. The bucks moved to 95 yds and looked at me while I got a bolt out and loaded the crossbow. I then sat down to lower my silhouette. I thought lets just see what happens. The younger buck wanted to rejoin the doe. After several minutes he started to go towards her. This put him coming diagonally towards me.
I thought maybe the bigger buck would follow so I stayed put. At his closest point the smaller buck came in to 65 yds. The the bigger buck started to follow. As he went behind a tree I moved 5 yds closer to his line of travel. At 60 yds I felt like I had a good chance. He stopped at the tree. Whether he saw me move or was just nervous I don't know. Eventually he followed the same path as the smaller buck and stopped broadside picture perfect at 60 yds. So I put the bolt through him. It broke the off side leg as it exited. He went about 85 yds.

90 degrees out so I quickly field dressed him and went to find Larry. He was parked on a hill and was so engrossed watching deer he did not see me coming.... My knees did not appreciate the exercise. We were able to drive to him which made it nice. Great hunting on private property and not BLM where you can't drive to them. We got him hone and hung up. Skinned and quartered and in a ice chest to cool off. Cut and wrapped the next day. So deer is done early.

Next are a few antelope... Lets see if the cell phone pics of the deer come through. He has funny eye guard points that fishhook down. about 24 in wide. Not a bad first deer with a crossbow, especially with my knees the way they are right now......

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Congratulations buddy! 60 yards is great shot! Well done!
 
@gillettehunter I see that you are having difficulties posting your pictures, please feel free to email them to me at info@africahunting.com and I will include them in your initial post.
 
Well done Bruce!
 
Love hearing the stories ....but without pictures I'm not so sure I believe you ! LOL ? Congrats.
Glen
 
I e-mailed Jerome some pics. So hopefully he"ll get them up soon. Bruce
 
Congrats Bruce, and thanks for sharing your hunt with us. I hope you recover quickly and fully from the surgeries. One of my best friends had both knees replaced a few years ago. He's good as new now and wishes he hadn't waited so long to have them done.
Looking forward to seeing pics of your buck (y)
 
great story! wish I could have been out there with you, or just simply out somewhere...that isn't the college campus...or work.
 
Great story, sounds like you have a nice area to hunt.
 
Congrats! Way to get some venison!
 
Great story. I read that those bows are good for 100 yds. Maybe next year after a little more practice you'll be confident enough to air it out a little bit. At 74 I'm more comfortable with a cross bow myself. My Excalibur is good for 50 yds. and I've been happy with that. I'm all for new technology that keeps "old school" guys like us in the game.
 
Great hunt gillettehunter! You are one tough guy going out with both knees just replaced. Please don't push your luck and damage them before they get a chance to heal properly. This getting old stuff is hard! I just hit the 70 this summer and have been very lucky so far.
Can't wait to hear your antelope report. I drew antelope doe tag (my yearly meat hunt) in the triangle between Cheyenne, Wheatland and Laramie.
Best
 
Bruce, I want to see this deer! Hurry up and send the email. :)
 
Sent an e-mail yesterday. Had 5 pic so maybe didn't go through. Resent this AM 2 e-mails w/ 1 photo ea.
Great story, sounds like you have a nice area to hunt.
It is a nice ranch. Close to 70,000 acres. Then there is that much more public land within 25 miles that can be hunted.
Bruce
 
Or Bruce you could try gayleglen@rogers.com ..... I'd like to see them before everyone else ....then I'll try to post them !
Glen
 
Congrats and thanks for sharing!
 
Done and dusted.
Nice buck for your first knee replacement trophy.

Congrats.
 
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