Deer hunting BS thread

Shot this 10 pointer yesterday afternoon but made a bad hit. Found blood and tracked about 50 yards and decided to back out. Found him this morning about 40 yards from where we stopped looking. My longtime hunting buddy shot one yesterday afternoon also. First time we doubled up since we’ve hunted together for around 30 years. My best buck to date

 

Nice! congrats!

 

Thanks, I was so stressed out worrying we may not find him

 

Two good uns!!
Congrats!!

 

Congrats!

 

I bet! What state?

 

Well done

 

NC

 

congrats nice bucks!!!

 

noice, very noice !!!

 

very nice buck. thats when we know its starting. bucks show up we never seen before that are cruising.

 

congrats. 2 very nice bucks

 

Muzzle starts this morning. was off but gave it to a gal on my crew that really needed off. so 12 hrs. today and off till December. perk of being old with senority after 39yrs in this crap hole. GOOD LUCK ALL

 

Very Nice!
What part of NC are you in?

 

Excellent

Congratulations to both of you.

 

I live in Greenville but have a lease in Northampton

 

I hunt in Northampton too, but we never see bucks like those...lol.
We have a lot of Bears

 

Messing around with Bing Image Creator.
Pretty cool stuff.

 

Decided to try deer hunting for the first time yesterday. Went solo, to a spot on public land I had been offroading before and seen deer several times, but wasn't really expecting to get anything and figured I'd end up fishing after a few hours. Got onto the FS road and saw other hunters were already there - great. Park my truck and hear 3 shots ring out - great, there goes all the deer. Got all my gear on anyway and start walking towards the area I've seen the deer before, and about 30min later as I'm getting close I hear a constant rustling in the bushes in front of me, not sure if it's a deer, a hunter, or something else. Basically froze in place with my gun ready, but not hidden at all, just trying not to make any noise. A few moments later a spike emerges from the brush and walks within 15 yards before noticing me. I figure this is the best opportunity I'm going to get, so I took the shot, he jumped, and took off back into the bushes.

After 30 minutes I start trying to track it, but immediately realize I'm going to have some trouble. It's very dense woods so I can only see about 30 yards in any direction at best, and finding a blood trail is going to be really difficult - 50% of the leaves on the ground are red, and the other 50% are yellow with flecks of read all over them. Start making my way downhill towards the river at the bottom, not really following anything other than the general direction I saw it run, but stopping every 20 yards to see if I see any sign of it. Thankfully after about 150 yards and fearing I'd lost/injured him, I found him dead as can be out an open area.

Was able to get him field dressed and then took home to process. Definitely made some mistakes and wasn't as efficient as I'm sure most are with getting all the meat off, but it was a good learning experience and I've got a full freezer now. Will probably use a processor next time, I wasn't really as prepared for that as I thought I would be and my wife was not happy about the mess in the backyard.

 

Congrats! There is no better way to learn than making your own mistakes and realizing you need to address it differently next time. I did the same thing on my first archery stalk. Boy was I bummed when I blew the 1/2 mile stalk, but definitely was the best and biggest learning lesson for sure.