My Dad has been trying to get back into bowhunting (compound bow). Last year he killed a small doe. It was his first bowkill in over 20 years I think. This year he was hoping for a buck. He got a new trail camera and he has really been enjoying getting pictures of some nice ones. Yesterday morning he shot a buck, but hit it to far back. I had worked night shift and was sleeping so I couldn't help him look for it. My brother-in-law and my Mom helped him, but they couldn't find much blood at all and eventually gave up. I came home from work this morning and decided to skip sleeping and help him look for his buck. I printed off a picture of our property from google earth and had him mark where he shot it and where they had searched. We looked all afternoon and didn't find anything. We worked our way to a small pond, the only water source in the area, and still nothing. While looking, I found a great spot to move one of my ladder stands to. We decided to quit looking for the deer and move the stand. My Dad suggested that we go get his double ladder stand from the other side of the property and move it to the new spot. He said that he already shot his buck for the year and even though he didn't find it, he wasn't going to go out again. He said it wouldn't be right for him to shoot another buck. We drove his utility truck to his stand, but we can only get it within 30 yards of it. As we were walking up to the stand, we both pointed and yelled. His buck was laying dead 15 yards from the stand. It had made a big loop and wasn't anywhere near where we thought it would be. We both couldn't believe we had found it. This was not the same stand that he shot the deer from. The meat was spoiled, but at least we found it. The buck was one that he had several pictures of. It was a 10 pointer. My Dad has killed a lot of bucks, but never a 10 pointer. He was very happy about getting his first one. We went ahead and moved the stand and then went back for the buck. We lined my truck bed with some plastic and loaded it up so he could check it in. We are going to do a Euro mount on it.
Picture taken through the ladder of his stand showing how close it was.
