2013 pa archery

[reeltime]

well with tagging out on a good buck here in NY early in Oct. it set into motion plans of getting as much work done as I could so I could head to the family farm for more than my standard last week of archery hunt.

The one issue for me was our duck season opened the last saturday of Oct. and with a young lab that is more passionate about ducks than me. I didn't want to disappoint her so I decided to stay and hunt the first 4 days of our duck season then head south. That was a good decision as we were in the right spots on each of those days and did very well.

Off to the farm on the 30th with the wife departing for the farm the next day. of course the 31st it poured rain and as luck would have it the tranny cooler in her car blew on her way so it was back to belmont NY to get her and leave the car to be fixed, and 5 days later another round trip to get her car.

The weather for the last 2 weeks was unreal, from windy conditions almost every day to snow, cold, warm, etc. but I saw deer on every sit but 1. saw allot of bucks, a couple real hogs, some that we pretty small. all in all I passed up 11 legal bucks, I missed a good 8 point at 5 yards when I hit a grapevine, very thankful the arrow completely missed the deer.

The first wednesday morning I was there I had a very close encounter with a not so happy 300lb make black bear I laid a scent trail from the edge of a cornfield down the tractor path and then a reversed J to 10 yards from the stand. Hook up the bow and climbed 26 foot up the climbing stick onto the stand and then just as I started bringing up the bow I hear foot steps coming towards me.

My first thought was here comes that dopey 4 point again ( he literally followed me in there one day) its 6am and pitch black out. when it gets to about 10 yards I see that its a bear and I know which one it is as I have seen him a number of times this year. I get the bow up knock an arrow and hang the bow on the hanger. the bear is just snooping around and I figure he is just going to go out into the corn and feed.

All of a sudden he starts jaw popping and huffing and he circles the tree I am in 2 times, now I am getting a little nervous so I get the bow in my hands as I am watching him. He comes over and is standing at the climbing sticks smelling them, then he puts his front feet on the sticks, I clip the release on the string.....

The next few seconds will be forever engraved in my memory banks!! He made a 20 foot climb faster than I could draw the bow! lucky for both of us he stopped before he got to the last section! I was surprisingly calm for being face to face at 6 feet with him. As I am at full draw and we are looking each other eye to eye I said in a very clear and loud voice "hey there aint room for both of us up here"

he looked at me with wide eyes, looked at the ground and then slowly started climbing back down. The one thing that I can vividly recall is that he never touched the tree! he came up and went down the climbing stick just like I did.

he hung around for the next 30 minutes, of course it was still too dark for a cell phone picture but i did manage one crappy picture at 6:31 am, just before he went out into the cornfield to feed. Once the metal taste in my mouth ended and I got calmed down I reflected back on what had just happened. I realized that no matter how fast you think your reflexes are you are NO match for a bear! you can not believe how fast a bear can climb! I told dad that my biggest fear was that he was going to knock me off the stand and being strapped to the tree he would just bat me around like a pinyatta. But it all worked out in the end and ever saw a few deer that morning and passed on a nice 1.5 yr old 7 point.

So the whole time we are there my wife is watching bucks go back and forth through our horse pasture. last thursday she said a 2.5 and 3.5 yr old were out there doggin does and there are 5-8 does there every evening. I was still on a good buck but when I got back late friday moring she said the same 2.5 & 3.5 yr olds were there again and a couple 1.5's.

So I take a stand out along the fence to the only decent sized tree, but its crookeder than a dogs hind leg but I manage to get a stand up about 18 feet too low for my liking but gotta work with what I had. saw 1 buck friday evening that I passed on.

So Saturday morning I said I am setting there dark to dark, finally a morning with very little wind. I laid a scent trail along the fence from the corner up in front of the stand and did my reverse J climbed up and waited for the sunrise. I saw a few deer crossing our hayfield headed into the bottom, listened to the ringnecks yelling back and forth to each other it was a nice morning.

just before 8am our youngest son texts me and he had just shot a buck in ny ( it was the first day of firearm season) I had just texted him back when I hear a deer running through the brush coming towards me. grab the bow and watch as a young doe walks right under me and stops to smell the climbing sticks, then moves east up the hill.

A couple minutes later I hear another deer walking towards me, then he starts grunting. its thick behind me and I can just see a big bodied deer and a flash of antler here and there and one spot I caught sight of a decent length G2 he is now at 8 yards in heavy brush he takes a step I come to full draw he is at 5 yards I can see him pretty good but no clear shot or conformation that it ws not a 1.5 yr old, but he was certainly legal.

he stood there for about 45 seconds which gave me a little time to try and judge him, That is by far the toughest angle to try and judge a deer! I went with what I could see and was certain that he was at least a 2.5 he

took about 5 steps and was now at 3 yards with a perfect openeing into his right shoulder.

When the arrow hit him he wheeled around and crashed back the direction he came from, I saw the back half of the arrow break off and then I heard nothing, couldn't hear him running, nothing. so I let the bow down got my gear together climbed down and crawled through the brush to check the part of the arrow I could see.

There was a little blood on it where the arow broke and no sign on the ground. I marked the spot and backed out. walked back to the house and sprayed the end of the arrow with peroxide and got a decent amount of foam.

Dad wanted to go pull a couple stands but said we can go look for your buck before we go, I said nope he won't be any deader in 2 hours than he is now but if he isn't dead now he might be in 2 hours. The lack of blood on the ground and really visible blood on the arrow had me a little concerned, I knew where the arrow went and was confident he was dead but wanted to wait just to make sure.

we get back around 10:15 and I have dad walk the road edge below the pasture just to see if he maybe crossed the road. I start crawling through the multifloral rose and autumn olive and about 20 yards past where I found the arrow I find my first little spot of blood. just another few yards and now there is good blood. call dad on the phone and tell him he is going down hill towards the well road. I can see where he is really scuffing the leaves and leaving lots of sign.

Then I get to his bed,,,,he aint laying in it! there is blood everywhere! Then I see where he got drug down the hill!! I about puked! I thought you gotta be kidding me someone came along saw him laying there and took him! you talk about instant rage! I follow the drag marks down the hill about 25 yards and see blood smeared on the trees, the blackberry bushes laid over.....I am about sick!! I get to the well road where the drag ends...

I look to the right of me and there is my buck stashed under the blackberry bushes!! how he got there I don't know, I know it wasn't him that got himself there, don't know if it was a person that moved him and planned to come back or if it was one of the bears that did it, the ground was too hard to see any fresh tracks.