My archery buck. I am starting more and more to look for mature mulies over antler size. Well this guy was definitely mature/probably on the down hill slide.
At first light we were looking over a huge valley. My buddy Knaper also had a tag and his uncle was along for the heck of it. After spotting for an hour we found this buck bedded. We looked him over, noted he was nothing real impressive, but appeared to have good mass. We watched him get up and feed for a bit and then re-bed in a higher location with a better view. After not seeing any other deer. From our advantage point we moved spots and looked over 2 other areas without seeing any deer at all. At this point it was nearing late morning and the animal activity was sure to drop off. we made plans to go look over some different country that was a good drive away. Before we went I had to take one more look at this buck and see if I could put a hunt together. When we got back out to our high spot we found the buck where we had left him, resting a top a knob. I decided to make a move and try for him. I circled off the ridge top and into the valley. I snuck along a wash for a bit, closing the distance to about 200 yards. At this point the cut bank in the wash ran out leaving me in the open. The buck was pretty comfortable at this point, head slowly bobbing in the warm sun. I had about 40 yards of wide open ground to cover most of which was in his view if he were to look up. I decided to crawl my way into more cover. Very slowly I crawled one hand, one leg at a time. After each movement I would sit and wait, watching to see if he looked over. About 3/4 of the way across the flat an eagle flew close to him and caused him to become alert and stand up. I was still not to cover and pretty much in the open. The buck looked around for a bit then started feeding. As his head was down I would move if it came up I froze. eventually I made it to some cover.
At this point I had closed the 1 mile gap down to around 130 yards. Using cover I closed in to about 80 yards. The ground was noise boots under my boots so I took them off and continued in my socks. I kept moving very slowly one bush to the next until I ran out of cover again. At this point the buck had made it into the the same wash I was in earlier. It however had made a cut bank again that was about 3 feet deep. the buck was in the bottom of the cut bank as I made my final move across about 40 yards of open ground.
When I got close I drew my bow and walked 1 step at a time trying to see the buck in the cut. I stepped around 1 bush and there he was, feeding head down at 12 yard.
I took my aim and let the arrow fly. It was a great shot through both lungs. The arrow went clean through and burried it self into the far bank. My buddy and his uncle watched it all from way up on teh ridge. In fact my buddies uncle even saw the arrow go clean through the buck. They both watched the buck run for about 60 yards and pile up. I did a little happy dance while they pulled the truck around.
Got the truck to about 15 yards from where the buck died, took pictures and loaded him up. It was a great hunt, one that all 3 of us will remember and talk about for years.
Again not the biggest rack, but one of my best deer stories yet. He is a very mature buck and actually eats pretty good.
Hope u enjoy: He is also my first archery deer.
Here is a pic of me in the stalk... The deer is just to my left in the creek. Also nothing in the area is taller than about waist high. So when I ran out of cover that means there was nothing at all.