Legacy

Brand new. Out of the package.

wyoming county

Lets see if i can make a long story even longer... A couple of weeks ago I hung a new stand in a great deer funnel. Deer trails from all directions leading to this one intersection. And at the time that I hung this stand there was 7 fresh scrapes within 20 yards of it. On monday, I hunted that new stand and was visited by a small 8 pt around 9am. The deer (of course) approached from behind my right shoulder which also happens to be directly down wind but only was focused on visiting and freshening up one of the scrapes. With his attention on the scape, he gave me plenty of opportunity to reposition myself in the stand and prepare for a shot. As he left the scape, I stopped him with a quick mouth grunt, and he gave me a picture perfect broadside 12 yard shot. I could see the entry hole and knew that i made a great shot and with my arrow stuck in the ground i also knew i had a pass through. The buck didnt know what hit him. He trotted for about ten yards then began to walk. He makes it about 40 yards. Stops. Then looks back to see what had happened. My thoughts were that the deer would fall over right there. As im watching him a doe and fawn walk up behind me and bust me in the tree and alert the entire deer woods of my prescence. When i look back my buck is gone but i convince myself that he is on the ground, dead. With everything happening so quickly, I look at the time and note time of shot 9:06am. At 10:00 i pack up, get out of the tree, and head over to collect my arrow. NOTE LOOK HOW CLEAN THIS ARROW IS I walk slowly over to collect my deer from behind the deadfall that i believe he is behind and... hes not there??? I see blood and take a few more steps and i see the deer get up about 50 yards away and boogy out of there. I begin questioning shot placement in my head. Did i hit him too far back? Liver? The blood trail that ive seen so far sucks. I make the decision to pull out and give him time. I get breakfast, run home, change clothes, get the 4 wheeler, fuel up the truck, pick up my father in law. Anything to eat up time. We return to the woods, find the bloody bed that i had jumped him from, and pick up the blood trail. Its about 1:00- 1:30 at this point. Not a great blood trail (borderline terrible) but still a blood trail. We eventually find lung. and more lung. and more lung. Great news... I now know that i have a confirmed lung shot. For about 20 yards or so, we have a great blood trail but its short lived. That once great blood trail eventually trickles to an occasional drop and then stops entirely. The trail leads us to a deer trail that goes in 3 directions. Zero blood. After spending an hour in search of a single drop of blood to determine direction of travel, Zero. Nothing. No blood. There is no worse feeling in the deer woods then not recovering your deer. As an act of desperation, I begin to do a blind body search in the hardwoods. First the left trail = nothing. Then the middle trail = nothing. Then 100-150 yards down the right trail im face to face with the buck, and to my surprise still alive, staring at me from 15 yards away. TOUGH TO SEE... At this point it had been almost 6 hours and somehow hes still alive. He eventually jumped from his bed and once again took off. We made the decision at that point with out a blood trail, we need to see him bedded and let him sit overnight. Eventually making our way through the woods, my father inlaw sees the buck near the top of ravine @ 4:15. So we back out. After a great night of sleep, the plan is to pick up the trail at sunrise from the last place he was seen. Hopefully hes dead in his bed on the ravine or he died in the creek bottom looking for water. Either way is fine, im just hoping for a dead deer. After 5 min into our search, im yelling "dead buck"! He was dead in his bed. After emotional roller coaster over the past 22 hours, I was eager to see the autopsy report. From the outside, i could see that the exit hole was in the chest cavity almost a mirror image of the entry hole. It looked to be a great shot. On the inside, I found everything to be intact including the diaphram. When i got to the chest cavity, i found the back third of the right lung (exit side) to be bloodied and jellied. The heart was untouched. and after inpection the left lung (entry side) was also shot. Perfect hole (on the back third) but with very little trauma. Confirmed double lung. RIGHT LUNG LEFT LUNG The point of this long post is im amazed at the resilience of whitetails. Im amazed that this deer survived a double lung shot for at least 7 hours and 9 mins and managed to travel over 500-550 yards. BUCK DOWN!

congrats!

Awsome stuff!

good shooting Scott!

awesome!

Awesome!