Stepped Away From the Dark Side

[creed_az_88]

It's kind of ironic that I'm writing this just a week and a half after I shared the story of my archery mule deer. I think the title is fitting though...

 

It was just about ten years ago when I first started dating my wife. At that time she had never shot a gun, never held a gun, and I'm not so sure she had really even ever seen a gun, yet alone a bow. We were polar opposites, and in many ways still are, but it worked and it's still working, quite well actually. It didn't take long for her to become deadly with a rifle. As our relationship became more serious, so did her desire to hunt. She quickly became addicted to the desert mule deer in our state and actually took a few good ones over the last few years. All the while I spent most of my time hunting coues deer. We had a friendly little rivalry over who's favorite deer was better. "Mule deer Stink and taste like mud." "Your deer is nice but it's way smaller than mine." We've kept the smack talking going for years now, but I've always known she had no idea what she was missing out on. After a few years of rifle hunting I bought her a bow. This was a whole new challenge. Because of my poor rangefinding skills, she's missed a few bucks with it, but all in all it has been very tough to find the time to get her out hunting during bow season with two young kids at home. Not only that, but who wants to waste good days during Bow season on mule deer anyways. Haha. This last year she has kind of hinted at maybe giving coues deer a shot. I think she finally saw the light. We talked about 2017 being her year to shoot a whitetail. We figured we would try to draw a decent rifle tag and focus on her a little bit more than normal. After me tagging out on the 5th, it really opened up some time for me to hunt with her in January....

 

 

Shooting a deer with a bow is tough business. Shooting a coues deer with a bow is very tough business. Never in a million years did I think it would come together on our first outing of the year together. We were able to arrange a baby sitter for Sunday and bounced around between ideas on what and where to hunt. Saturday night a storm hit and we knew the high country would have some snow. What we didn't know is that the storm would stick around all day long. We opted to hit the high country in hopes of seeing some rutting coues deer. Our morning was slow. Very slow. We couldn't glass anything because of the clouds, so we just still hunted, stopping and rattling every once in awhile. The ground was covered in fresh snow which made it very quiet. We saw about 4 does all morning long, dealing with on and off snow and rain the whole time. It was close to noon before we got into any action. Miracle spotted a deer zipping through the trees on the oak flat that we were in. We could tell that a buck had chased another deer off into a ravine. We figured it was another buck that he had chased off so we knew that there was at least two bucks over there. We circled way around them, getting the wind in our face. It was super thick down in there, with as many horizontal dead trees as there was standing. We inched our way towards where we had seen all the commotion. We would stop and look through the trees with our binos every few feet just looking for some movement. The wet ground and soft soil made it completely silent for us. Snow was melting and falling off the trees, aiding in covering our noise. Before long I could make out a deers body and then his head and antlers through a thick wall of brush. He was just standing staring away from us. I could tell that he had a couple of unique points including an extra eye guard... Not huge but a perfect first archery buck I thought. As we stood still for awhile miracle noticed another buck similar in size feeding right towards us. He was about 50 yards out with quite a bit of brush between us and him. We switched our focus to him as he fed closer. He would stop every few feet and look at the buck to our right. As we were watching this buck, waiting for him to come into our only shooting lane in that direction, the buck to our right began to trot away from us and then would walk back. I couldn't see any other deer in that direction but it was apparent that he was trying to keep other bucks away from a doe. The buck to our left was about 5 yards from entering our shooting lane at about 30 yards when all of a sudden a spike comes blazing right by the split eye guard buck, tears through the brush, zooms past us at about 5 yards and keeps going. The buck that was so close to walking into our shooting lane takes off right behind the spike in hot pursuit, leaving us with only the split eye guard buck to our right visible. At this point he was down in a shallow ravine, with only his head visible. He was facing away form us back towards where the spike came from. We needed to get by this wall of brush in front of us to have a chance at getting a shot at this point. We crept closer to him, ducking through the only opening in this entanglement and as we got through the wall of brush, the buck turns around and starts walking towards us. We were way too close. The only reason we ever got this close was because of the weather and the wet mushy ground. It was snowing fairly hard at this point which surely masked some of our movement. The buck started to come out of the ravine right towards us. We were standing right where he had been standing about five minutes prior. Miracle came to full draw, and he instantly pegged us. He took one half step up out of the ravine toward us as if to get a better look, exposing his chest and neck. I whispered to miracle to take the shot, "use your top pin." I did not know how far away he was but I knew we were alot closer than we should have been. The deer was on coils at this point, dumbfounded by the idea that danger had showed up so close. I don't think it was anymore than two seconds from the time she drew her bow to the time she touched it off. Her slow flying arrows were no match for the lightning quickness of this soaking wet little ghost. He spun right at the sound of her bow going off. What would have been a perfectly executed frontal shot became a hard quartering to shot with the Montec piercing two ribs on the way in just behind the left shoulder and traveling through one lung, liver, and stopping in the stomach. Of course we did not know exactly how much penetration she had at this point, but we did know we heard the right "milk jug" thunk so I was sure she had punctured the body cavity. Miracle was shaking hard. Some Of it could have been from being soaking wet but I would say that the buck fever hit her pretty hard. We ranged the where he was standing. 15 yards! She was now officially away from the dark side. At least temporarily. It was a moment I won't ever forget. I've only seen a smile that big from her a few times in our lives. I was a little skeptical myself. I was unsure of what to think of the shot. I had a video camera in my hand and I never even turned the dang thing on. It would have been some spectacular footage. As we were hugging each other and trying to settle our excitement, the hot doe jumped up and ran off. She was bedded about ten yards from us the whole time. The snow turned back into rain which forced us to start the trailing quickly. I've been on quite a few bloodtrails in my life, but I've never seen one with so little blood end up with a recovery unless the animal expired within the first hundred yards. We didn't find any blood for the first hundred yards. It was close to half an hour before we saw any blood at all just due to the half melted snow everywhere and the plethora of tracks from the other deer involved in the little rut fest that had taking place. To make this already long story shorter, we spent the next four hours following every single set of tracks in the area towards where we last saw the buck run to. They all led to the same thing, no blood and tall grass with melted snow and rocky soil that absorbed any tracks. Miracle was pretty bummed at this point and extremely cold. We hiked back to the truck and I left her there with the heater running. The last thing I needed was for Her to end up with hypothermia. Myself and two little girls depend on her way too much at home. She was so down and out about this deer possibly suffering and us not recovering him that she mentioned a couple of different times that she didn't want to archery hunt anymore. I was determined to find this thing. I knew I wasn't gonna find blood or his tracks after the last four hours of rain and snow so I just started looking in places that I felt deer spend some time. I made a few big loops through some of the stuff we hadnt quite made it to yet. On my very last loop I decided to hug the far rim of a little mesa that we felt he had went onto based on tracks we had followed prior and walk it back towards the truck. About halfway back down this rim, I hear something break some branches and I see something pink floating through the brush down below me. It was her arrow sticking out of his side. I stayed still and watched as he stopped trotting and stood still. It was obvious he was really hurting. I watched him for about five minutes hoping he would bed and then snuck back away from him. He just stood there. I ran back, got miracle and then we snuck right back to where I last saw him. He had walked about fifty more yards and then Layed back down on the side of that mesa. We were able to slip in behind him and finish what we had started five hours prior. It was an emotional way to end the day, and an exciting way for miracle to start her new journey on the "bright" side. Ha jk. Sorry for the long read. This day was very special for me and I didnt want to leave out too many details. I enjoyed writing it more than I enjoy recapping my own hunts. I'm so proud of this woman I can't truly relay how much she impresses me. If you would have told myself or any one of her family members ten years ago that she would one day be feeding her family venison that she shot with her bow, not one of us would have believed it. Thanks for reading. Here's the pics.

 

Storm lifting as we were driving out. Go figure.

 

 

Creed

[creed_az_88]

Can somebody please rotate the pics for me. I really struggle with that for some reason.

[CatfishKev]

That's awesome man! Looks like the exact same setup I got my wife. I hope to tell a similar story soon.

[firstcoueswas80]

Man that's super cool. Very glad you found her buck, no doubt that would have been a devastating blow to her.

[22Jet]

Man what and incredible day for you guys! Congratulations Miracle and a big thumbs up to your husband for making it all possible!

[buddydog]

Big congrats!! Hats off to you for putting in the effort to find this guy and finish him off

[carpcody]

Wow congrats to your wife and you. Your a killing machine

[bojangles]

Cool.

[22-6mm]

Great job Miracle, Still waiting for my first coues with a bow.

[mattys281]

 

Congrats to you guys! Great buck!

[mattys281]

 

 

[creed_az_88]

Thanks for rotating the pics man.

[AzDiamondHeat]

Well done. Please keep posting these stories so my wife can get the courage to try it.

 

Lots of respect to Miracle.

[gonhunting247]

Great read and pics! Thanks for writing a nice recap of the day. Congrats to you and Miracle, that's a great accomplishment!

[mattys281]

Thanks for rotating the pics man.

 

No problem. Thanks for sharing and congrats again!