1st archery coues!

[Gr8 White Jr]

This year was a very crazy year with a lot of bad luck stacked up against me bu I still managed to get my 1st archery coues. The 1st weekend of the hunt was amazing to say the least with nonstop action. Angie and I hunted the first three days of the hunt and we both passed on several bucks. The weekend ended VERY poorly! It’s a longs story that would take five hours to type up so I’ll just sum it up short and sweet. We had an issue with some anti hunters finding our spot and I ended up removing my tree stands. Angie and I had planned on hunting all three weekends so to say that I was disgusted about our spot being ruined was an understatement. I was very depressed and felt like my year was ruined. All week long while I was at work I tossed around ideas of what to do and whether or not I should try to set up my stands again and try to finish out the rest of the season. Since I didn’t have a set plan anymore to hunt the rest of the season I agreed to go to work on the next Saturday. Before I left for work I through my tree stand, pack, a set of camos and my bow in my truck just in case I finished work early. Well it turned out that I got done at work pretty early on Saturday so I jumped in my truck and hauled butt praying that I would have enough time to get my stand set up. After a long drive I strapped my stand and ladder sticks to my frame pack and packed them in and set up my tree stand just before dark. I had a new sense of motivation once my stand was up. The next morning I was up at 2:30 and in my stand by 4:45. At 1st light a spike came walking by. Not knowing what to expect my standards had dropped significantly but I told myself I wasn’t going to shoot a spike so he walked on to live another day. By 7:00 am two does had walked by boosting my confidence but also making me nervous as they acted very skittish as if they knew something wasn’t right. At 7:30 I looked to my left and saw a deer body moving my direction. As I watched closer I could see that it was a buck.. I could see that he had a decent little basket frame but that was it, I couldn’t tell anything else about how big he was because his head was down as he was feeding coming right toward me. I made the decision that if he came under my stand I was going to shoot him. Once I was committed I just went into auto pilot, taking my bow off the hanger and hooking my release. As the buck came closer my eyes scanned around until I found a shooting lane. As the buck approached the shooting lane I drew my bow and waited for him to clear. I focused on his shoulder and settled my pins right behind it. I released…. WHACK!!! The buck jumped so fast and tore out of there. I didn’t see where I hit the buck because it happened so fast but I was confident that the shot was good being that it was only 15 yds. I waited about 20 minutes before getting down out of my stand and walking over to check my arrow. The sign on the arrow and all over the ground was very promising, bubbly blood! I was confident that the buck was already dead so I started to fallow the blood trail expecting to find the buck in less than 100 yds. With a very large amount of blood I was very confident at first but that started to diminish as the blood trail went on and on and on. I came up on a spot that looked like the buck had stopped. There was a pie plate size puddle of frothy blood on the ground but no buck. I started to get nervous thinking that I might be pushing the buck so I sat down and decide to give it more time. After sitting there for about ten minutes while the clouds were rolling in, it started to rain. “Oh no! This isn‘t happening” is all that was going through my mind. I wanted to give the buck more time but felt that I had to push on before the rain washed away the blood trail. I continued on for about a half mile and dropped about 500 to 700 feet in elevation, the whole time I was completely dumb founded at how this buck had gone so far. I came to a steep drop off. I looked below me and saw my buck below me about 75 yds away standing with his head down on the edge of a huge thicket. I couldn’t believe it! How was this deer still alive? I watched him for about 10 minutes and in that time he moved very slowly, maybe ten feet into the thicket. I couldn’t see himt anymore at this point. I really wanted to stalk down in there and put another arrow in him but I knew I would be taking a huge risk of jumping him and could possibly loose him. I knew he would most likely lay down in that thicket and expire so I decided it was best to back out quietly and leave the area for a while so I hiked all the way out to my truck. When I got to my truck I sat down and tried to clear my mind. After sitting in my truck for quite some time my friend Justin (Gotcoues) and his son Dillon came driving up pretty fast. Justin jumped out of his truck and did a little dance. At that point I knew he had a buck down. I told him that I had shot one also and after exchanging stories we decided to go retrieve his buck first and give my buck some extra time just to be safe. After a long pack out with Justin’s buck we returned to the area that I shot my buck. Justin’s good friend Harvey had joined us to help with all the packing out of bucks so the four of us headed down to my stand to start tracking my buck. I showed them the blood trail and we all followed it all the way to the last place I had seen the buck. When we got to that point we started moving very slowly across a steep hillside. We were all expecting to get to the thicket and find a dead buck but as we approached I stopped in my tracks as I could see my buck bedded, still alive, about 30 yds below us. I could not believe this buck was still alive over 8 hours after I had shot him. All I could see was his head and the top of his neck. I drew back and settled my pin right at the top of his neck and released. Like a thread through a needle my arrow zipped cleanly through the brush and found its mark, whack! The buck jumped up and tore through the thicket almost taking a nose dive at one point but managed to stay up and running. Now I’m just completely amazed that this buck has taken two arrows and is still going. The four of us walked down to where the buck was laying and continued on the blood trail. We fallowed it through the thicket until I spotted the buck up ahead about 100 yds laying down between two trees. Its head was still up but its nose was only a couple inches off the ground. At this point I’m sure the buck is done for and will be dead in a matter of seconds. As we were standing there feeling confident that we would soon be packing another deer out we heard voices off in the distance. I must have the worst luck in the world because the voices we were hearing were coming from hikers coming up a hiking trail that my buck was laying less than 10 yds from. Yes of all places for this buck to go down it had to be right next to a hiking trail. Now we are all worried that if the buck doesn’t expire then the hiker might bump it so the decision was made that I need to make a quick stalk and put another arrow in the buck before the hikers got closer. I ripped my boots off and started my stalk in my socks trying to be as quiet and quick as possible. As I circled around below the buck I could hear voices below me and above me. I couldn’t believe my horrible luck. I have been down to this trail several times in the past two years while hiking around and scouting but have never seen a soul on the trail. Of course the one time I have a buck down there are people coming up the trail and down the trail. I looked up the hill as I approached the buck and I could see Justin waving his arms in a panic signaling me to shoot the buck as the hikers were quickly approaching. I got to 10 yds from the downed buck undetected. The buck was broadside and I expected to put another arrow in it and for it to not move. Boy was I wrong! As my arrow passed through both lungs and center punched the heart the buck jumped up and turned running right at me. I almost ended up on my butt as I jumped out of the way as the buck passed by at arms reach. This is when things went from bad to about as bad as it can get. The buck charged down the hill on its death run directly at four women hikers coming up the trail about 100 yds away. As the women started screaming and hiding behind trees the buck piled up literally 10 to 20 yds from the four women. The forest came alive with chaos as the women were screaming in confusion, one yelling “its shot, its shot”! “Who shot him?” one of the women yelled. I held my bow up and let the women know that I was the shooter. One of them yelled back “ why would you shoot it? Its not even deer season!” I informed the lady that it was indeed archery deer season and I was 100% legal. All four women were screaming and crying hysterically. I couldn’t believe what was unfolding before my eyes as I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet! At this point is when one of the women really lost it. She started screaming at me at the top of her lungs F@#K YOU, F@#K YOU, F@#K YOU! You @$$HOLE! It was insane chaos as all four women were screaming and cussing calling me a murderer along with every name in the book! The most aggressive of the four women was approaching me as she was screaming so mad she picked up a stick and threw it at me but was so angry that she had no accuracy in her throw and the stick hit the ground a measly 10 ft in front of her. She was about 10 to 15 yds from me when she picked up a rock the size of a softball and I informed/warned her that I had a side arm. She didn’t come any closer and didn’t throw the rock but continued to act very unladylike and spew all kinds of nastiness out her mouth. After this went on for the longest 10 minutes of my life the women finally moved on still screaming and crying. I understand that this was probably a very traumatic experience for these women and I felt HORRIBLE about that but their behavior was very uncalled for and out of control! Throughout all of this I tried to keep my cool and I think I did a pretty good job of it only snapping back at the women once or twice. Justin and Harvey showed great restraint as well, especially Harvey who never said a peep during all the chaos. Poor little Dillon was pretty shook up, that was a lot for a 11 year old to experience. Once the forest quieted down we quickly moved the deer away from the trail, took some quick pictures before skinning, quartering and starting the pack out. After the LONG pack out we reached the truck to find a sheriff deputy waiting for us. He told us that “some psycho woman had called 911 to report us murdering a deer”. The deputy thought the situation was quite amusing and after checking our licenses and inspecting our deer he went on his way. Between the buck taking so long to die and the psycho women this was by far the worst hunting experience I have ever had and not the way I would have ever imagined how taking my 1st archery coues would be. This is partly why its taken such a long time for me to finally share the story with all of you. HUGE thanks to Justin, Harvey and little Dillon for being there and helping with the pack out. You guys were life savers! As always thanks for reading my story and thanks to Amanda for such an amazing site where we can share our experiences, good and bad!

 

-Tracy

 

 

 

 

Even after all the chaos Dillon was still excited about seeing two bucks taken in one day.

[justinspe25]

That is a very crazy story alright! Glad is didn't get any crazier. Congrats on your buck. Thanks for sharing that adventure.

[gotcoues]

That summed it up pretty well, craziness!

[tjhunt2]

Holy cow Tracey, that was some story. I'm glad you finally posted it because it was killing me not knowing what went on and God only knows when I would see you again to hear your story. Congratulations on your first buck and what an adventure you went thru.

 

TJ

[bonecollector]

Oh my what a experience you had on your first successful archery coues hunt, one probably you will never forget. Its too bad the women acted like that especially in front of a young kid. Good for you to keep your cool while being attacked verbally and just about physically. Congrats on your first archery coues!

[Couzer]

Holy freakin smokes man!!! Dane I feel for ya! Great job in keeping your cool with them, I can't believe they did that! Anyways great job on the buck! Nice pics!

[revaeb]

Sounds like a pretty good hunting season so far. Despite the rukuss, of course. But a bear and your first archery coues! Nice job man!

[CouesWhitetail]

Wow! What traumatic hunt! I can't believe they would act like that! Great job tracking that buck and finishing him off. Wow, what a story. Thank you for taking the time to write that up!

[WHALE]

MAN!!!!!!!!!!! What a story, congrats on the buck.

[Santana Outdoors]

 

 

Wow what a story, sorry to hear that about the women. Glad you got a buck, Congratulations.

 

 

My brother was hunting by Tucson one year when some anti hunters came up through a valley trying to chase off the deer when they ran a deer right by my brothers hunting partner and he shot it with his bow. When the anti hunters came by he thanked them for chasing the deer to him!!!!!

 

 

 

 

[Chef]

Great job on the hunt.

Sorry about the ladies.

You did good on keeping your cool.

 

Nice to see Dillon wasn't turned off by them.

Nice thumbs up!

[CRAZYBUCK]

WOW I am speechless what a crazy story and nice first archery coues

 

 

[Kaffer62]

The bad thing with Tracy, is Women treat him like that all of the time.

[palivs2hnt]

Great buck and thanks for posting the story! Sorry to hear about the experience, but it made me laugh out loud. Again, I would not wish that upon anyone Tracy...great job on the tracking of that buck. Congrats!

[SO I HUNT]

Wow--- what a hunt Glad you had great will power to over come such mad women and what a great buck. Thanks for sharing your hunt with us!