I know it's late to post pics of the 2009 season, but since I am able to post pics now I am making hay while the sun shines.
I was stalking two little forkie muley bucks in a meadow up behind my house. They were mock sparring with their little racks just to show off. There were half a dozen does in the meadow already and most of them knew me by sight. Several of them were known to bed in the yard with their fawns within yards of my dog. The does were pretty well tame, unlike the bucks.
I did something stupid and flushed the bucks like a couple of pheasants in a corn field and felt like an idiot. I pulled my little basket rack of horns from my daypack and started tickling the points to see if they little farts would come back. Instead I heard a horse galloping towards me and I immediately thought that Terry, the landowner, would be pissed if I arrowed his little mustang filly! Instead, it was a mule deer buck and he almost brushed my shoulder as he ran around me and stopped broadside at 10 yds! I was shocked to say the least because he had to know I wasn't another deer, sight and smell had to confirm that! But he looked at the antlers in my hands, snorted, and lowered his head.
I dropped the antlers, I was not ready (or willing) for what he was thinking! Then I realized as I looked at his grossly engorged neck that it was the rut and now I looked less like a buck and more like a doe! I was even less less ready (or willing) for what he was thinking!! In slow motion I bent over and picked up the bow and an arrow from my feet as he continued to stare at me. I faltered with the arrow and dropped it, picked it up again in slow motion, dropped it again and gave up on the whole slow motion thingy...it's not like he didn't see me!!!
I nocked the arrow just as he turned and walked away with that funny stiff gait they use to show contempt. Now all I had was a perfect Texas Heart Shot of his broad backside. Nothing ventured nothing gained, so I said out loud, "Hey buddy? Can you turn around for me?" He did. And at no more than 15 yds.
I made full draw, exhaled and watched my arrow seemingly hang in mid-air spinning like a whirligig. I had a half moment while I was watching the arrow flight and realized I had just made a perfect release for once. No porpoising, no side to side wagging, just a nock with feathers spinning around it. Just then the arrow hit the deer low behind the shoulder up tight on the front leg! No more slow motion, the world exploded. The arrow bounced back out at me, a spray of blood hung in the air as the buck went off like a rodeo bronc with firecrackers under his saddle.
He kick-hopped across the meadow and stopped 30 yds out standing broadside again. I felt sick as a gut kicked dog for hitting the scapula, it must have been the scapula, why else would the arrow bounce right back at me? But then I noticed a pink foamy splotch on his side.
But this was the opposite side than the one I shot at! I had double lunged him.
I kept my eyes down, never looked him in the eye. I wanted him to think I was rooted to the spot and no threat at all. He bought it. He bought it in a big way because he snorted and started walking towards the half dozen does watching the scene. His head came down and his neck stretched out as he drew in lungfuls of muley doe estrus scents. His little tongue was flicking in and out pulling in those precious molecules of hotties in heat. He zeroed in on a doe and she flicked her tail at him and kicked half-heartedly at him. He approached again and was kicked at again, but still he came on. Finally she stopped and he did all he could to rise up to the occaision, but the broadhead was finishing it's lethal job. His blood pressure was dropping even as his libido was rising. He went down and thrashed briefly.
I was close enough to see his sides weren't moving, he was done.
