I promised myself that I’d not shoot anything with the crossbow unless it was special. I’ve been watching does and such go buy since early October. Last weekend I nearly pushed the safety off when a nice little 8-pointer came by. I held up . Today was much different.

I had serious action from first light on. Deer were moving through while I was still trying to get my gear hoisted up. At 15 minutes before legal hunting I had a buck grunting in the dark. I had deer coming from every possible angle. Still, the safety staid on.

Right at 0800, a big set of hooves came crashing up on my 3 O’Clock. He got to about 1 O’Clock before I realized this was a shooter– not the absolute biggest I’d seen, but it was a wickedly nice rack of probably 10 points or better– would have at least made B&C. He was now coming into a shooting lane at 11 O’Clock.

I grunted. He stopped. I had a clear shot on his chest. The safety came off and THWANG! I vaguely remember some sprinkles or something falling through the sight picture of the scope. The deer walked off, stood for a bit and then slowly made his way all the way around to the 8 O’Clock position and stood there watching his back trail. After several minutes he wandered off. I did not see him favoring a leg. I saw no wound on his side. It must have been a miss.

I had a heck of a time finding out what happened– no arrow, no blood, a few hoof prints. The one problem I had was figuring out exactly where I’d shot. An old dead limb about 10 yards out kept keeping me from seeing the shooting rail of the stand. . . Hey! Wait a minute! Sure enough, there was a fresh hunk of rot blasted out from the bottom of the branch.

Sigh!

Oh well. I may hang this crossbow up for the year. I was originally thinking that I would take a few days next week and hunt with it, but . . .
1) The weather is warm– It’ll hit 70 today.
2) Something has kept the bucks from moving on with the rut. Somebody forgot to tell them that they should be chasing by now. Bucks are still just rambling about– not even seriously seeking.
3) I got what I needed– sometimes up in the stand before the Rifle Opener. By next year, I’ll have this crossbow figured out a lot better.

My guess is that the rifle season will be prime next weekend. There are certainly enough deer around for sure. There were a dozen out in the field last night. KYHillChick stayed back at the house and heard bucks fighting just a couple of hundred yards off.

Update on Midway– the new shooting house.

Last night I decided to stay out of the stand, because we were still catching 35 MPH gusts when I was set to leave at 1500. Instead, I went out to Midway, the new shooting house and stayed there until dark. It was quite pleasant. Sundown was at 1730, and the temperature was still about 70F when the deer started pouring into the adjoining food plot.

First it was 3– the same trio Angus had for Yute Season– a mother and twins. It was getting dark enough that I thought I might be able to slip out on them when a large dominant doe showed up and chased the three over to the other side of the plot. Then a pair, then a single, then. . .
. . . Holy cow! The plot was filling up now and the deer were all moving towards me. There I was, with the big Meade astronomical binos in the window with deer less than 20 yards away. So much for camo– I was in a white T-Shirt, with red suspenders on my jeans. So much for scent control– I was 12 hours gone from a shower, and even I could tell. Plus, I was hunting on carpet that had recently come out of my folk’s family room. These deer just didn’t care. I could have had any of about 3-4 doe, but the crossbow staid propped in the corner.

Now I was facing a situation: How do I get out? I checked out the back: nothing. I still had to close up shop. I finally decided that bringing down the shutter would probably not honk the deer off that much. I went for it– I heard a few deer run a few yards, but when I finally got everything buttoned up, they were all still in the field a few yards further out. I walked out quietly and lit the flashlight when I was about 100 yards away.

One last piece of data for the flashlight/no flashlight argument: I was heading back . It was now 45 minutes after sundown. I had my cheap little 2AA cell flashlight pointed out ahead of my feet. I was walking down the 2-track, headed for the pasture that leads to the house and-

Mrrrrrrt! Trundle trundle! Gallumph Gallumph!

A doe had broken cover just ten feet from me as I was walking in. She’d been trying to cross the fence line to my right and must have had a clear shot of me and the flashlight.

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