After 48 hours of not eating or sleeping well, I can finally gather my thoughts and tell this story. Sorry, it's kind of long, but worth it I think.
This season is my 13 year old son Tyler's first year hunting with a compound. He told me early this summer that he wanted to sell his crossbow and exclusively commit to hunting with his new Hoyt Ruckus compound. So, that's what we did, and the early season goal was to get Tyler his first deer with a compound. All summer long Troy (Bowtroll) and I had preached to Tyler the importance of practice, and just tried to get Tyler to understand how much different this year would be hunting with a compound.
Saturday evening, Sept 15, was my first night out where it was just Tyler and I, Tyler as the hunter and I as the camera man. We got settled in and the weather and wind were just perfect. I discussed with Tyler the conditions, and we both agreed that we would wait for a shooter buck this evening just because everything seemed so perfect. Well it didn't take long for our gut feeling to prove accurate as we were absolutely covered up with deer. The first 10 deer we saw were 8 bucks and 2 does. Of the 8 bucks only one was a shooter. Most of the deer we saw early on moved past us except for 2 big fat does that came into 10 yards. At this point I was questioning my call to hold out for a buck, but none the less that's what we did. Finally, after moving past us 30 minutes earlier, those 8 bucks slowly came back into range with the shooter showing up last. A nice 110" main frame 8 with an extra Unicorn brow tine sticking out the front was the star of our show and slowly moved into 15 yards where Tyler could take a shot. I, as the Dad first and camera man second, was scared to death as to whether or not he would be able to pull back his bow unnoticed with so many deer around. With the deer at 15 yards I whispered to Tyler from above that I was ready when he was and I had the deer in the frame of the camera. Tyler pulled his bow back, aimed, and squeezed off. The deer mule kicked and bounded off. Because I was looking into the view finder I couldn't tell exactly where the arrow had hit and Tyler told me he felt it was a little far back. So, we looked at the tape from the tree and decided it was definitely a little far back especially given the fact that the deer was quartered to us. I asked Tyler why he didn't wait for the deer to turn broad side and he said he thought that when I told him I was ready with the camera that I was telling him to shoot. So, inexperience and miscommunication lead to a not so desirable shot angle. Of course I started calling the rest of the Team Overkill gang and the consensus was to back out for the night. After getting home and watching the video back on an HD TV, we felt there would be no blood trail, but that the shot was lethal most likely hitting liver and guts. At that point I made a phone call to secure a tracking dog for the morning in hopes of recovering Tyler's first compound kill.
At 8am the next morning we met up with Holger and his tracking dog Glocke. We proceeded to the location of the shot and Holger and Glocke got started. It was absolutely a work of art watching Holger and his dog work. After a few hours the dog was able to find a small area of blood 250 yds from the shot, but after 400-500 yards away and a couple different trails, Glocke's trail ended at the road. The dog's desire to push on was obvious, but 3 hours into it and literally no sign, Holger made the decision to call it off mostly because we did not have permission to enter the property across the road. So we called it off and boy could you sense the disappointment in that dog. I had to be at work anyway so we decided to come back the next day, look for birds, and hopefully gain permission to look on the property across the street. We were really anxious to look across the road because that's where the water is and they say a liver/gut shot buck will go to water most of the time. So, I got off from the Firehouse this morning, came home and picked up Tyler, and we headed back once again hopeful we would find his deer. We arrived in the area an there were no birds noticeable. I drove down the road just looking into the creek bed which ran parallel to the road and saw nothing. I turned around a 1/4 mile down the road and began driving back which now put the creek on Tyler's side. All of the sudden Tyler yells out "There He Is". Tyler immediately got emotional and teared up. I knew how important recovering this deer was to him. His emotion made me proud. The deer was probably 100 yards from where we had called off the search the day prior. I was really surprised nobody had seen the deer as it was only 20 yards off the road and very visible. I was thankful that nobody had lopped it's head off. We knew the meat was no good as the foxes and buzzards had been having a feast. Tyler felt bad about wasting the meat but Troy and I both explained to him that if you bow hunt long enough it's going to happen. It's a hard lesson to learn at 13, but our persistence paid off. We knew the deer was dead it was just a matter of finding it.
Thanks to all the Overkill guys for the confidence to keep looking, and especially Holger and his dog Glocke for coming out on a Sunday morning to assist. On a side note, Kevin's 9 pointer from the other night will complete Tyler's mount by Tim Young. The cape from Tyler's deer was ruined so he will be using Kevin's cape for his mount. Thanks Kev.
Screen Grab from the buck walking in:
The shot, notice the angle and point of impact, not good:
A happy 13 year old:
The extra brow, man that thing would've caused damage in a fight:
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