Here is his story:
Saw about a dozen deer on Saturday am. Had a forky walk by at 10 yards about 8:15, head down and plodding, didn’t see him coming and he was passing me by the time I heard him, cant shoot a buck anyway and he was a little gnarly rack so I watched him go by. About 9;15 saw deer coming from the East, saw four, three does and a buck, the buck was a nice wide tan rack. He drove off one of the does and left following her, never cam closer than about 150 yards. The other two does came my way and stopped to feed and mill about 40 yards out, as I watched them I heard something off to my left and took a peak, there was mr. forky about 10 yards out and moving around me. I was still focused on the two does when one of them picked up her head and looked past me to my rear, I looked over my shoulder and there was a nice doe about 15 yards out and coming down the same trail that the forky had used earlier. She was walking at a steady pace and as she passed – I had to wait until she passed even- I pulled and had to make a quick shot as she wasn’t stopping. It hit a little far back and looked like a gut shot, she took a hop or two then joined by the young one that was following her, headed off through the trees at a good clip but not running, I could see the bright neon green feathers sticking out back near her rump.
Still had the three in front of me – two does and forky, but forky was staring at me and the does started fading away back to the East as Tom came up the trail and walked on up to our meeting point. Forky eventually just quietly faded back into the thick stuff.
Cant win for losing ! Found her, but made some wrong guesses and it cost me. She ended up in a dumpster. I had a swim meet for Irene Sat afternoon 1-5pm. I shot the doe at 9:30 am but thinking I had a bad shot decided I needed to follow the book and give her 6-8 hours for a gut shot. Well that put me right at dark so knowing I could not likely find her in the dark (no blood trail) high up arrow entry without exit) I decided I should wait until Sunday morning.
Made a good search Sunday am and found her after about 2 hours – no blood trail, she went about 250 yards all together, arrow was still in her. Post mortem showed she was dead before I left the woods, did not lay down just collapsed on a trail. The arrow went in far back, just clipped the front of the back leg but then angled forward and did not hit the intestines at all, and since I was fairly low on the tree the shot followed just under the backbone up into the left lung. The angle of her going away was a little more tilted than I realized. The shot was really not that bad.
Drug her out, probably at least ½ mile, hung her up, washed her out and skinned her, began cutting up the meat, took the back hams off, cleared away any nasty areas from the shot, and then walked out to smell the good meat away from the cleaning station, packed her up and dumped her. There was still steam when I gutted her. 24 hours was to long at that temp. she smelled like rot throughout. It was a real shame, she was a nice one, bigger than the photo shows, probably about 100 lbs. but rotting meat is rotting meat…
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