Hunting with Mike

This is the “King” taken in Jackson thirteen years ago. This typical eight pointer had a gross score of 160, and won top honors in Lansing at the Michigan Deer Spectacular for bow shot 8-pointers. As you can see the brow tines are unusual, and exceptionally long. The G-2’s were almost 12 inches and the G-3’s were around 10 inches.

This old boy was itching for a fight the day I was fortunate enough to take him. I was walking down a lane in the woods, and came to an area where another lane dissected the one I was walking on. As I approached the intersection I peered to my right, and saw a doe laying in the lane about 80 yards away. I backed off and hid behind a blow down. The rut was in full swing, and I figured a buck might be tending that doe. I grunted loudly several times, and before I could even get my bow ready, this monster ran past me. He stopped about 20 yards away facing away from me. There was a slight hill between the two of us, so I could only see about midway up his chest. I put my 20 yard pin just over the top of that hill, and on his chest. I let her fly, and immediately heard “whack!” The deer took off for the swamp he was facing, and to my horror of horrors my arrow was in the top of his front leg. He laid down about 60 yards away watching his back trail. I could not get any closer, so I just waited to see what he would do. After about an hour I decided to push the issue by making my presence known. As soon as I made a move toward him he jumped up and ran straight through the center of that swamp. When I got to where he was laying I was surprised to see the amount of blood in his bed! I figured I had to push him, as long as I had a blood trail. About 200 yards into the stalk I jumped him. He was slowing down, and I still had a good trail to follow. I missed him in a thicket with my arrow bouncing off a low hanging branch. I jumped him again about 5 minutes later, and this time I didn’t miss. The double lunger put him down for good, and upon inspection I realized the leg shot was more than I expected.

My first shot had actually went through the top part of the left leg and into the inside of the right leg. When the broadhead pulled out it took about an inch of the main right leg artery with it. Thats where all the blood was coming from, and why he continued to weaken. This was a classic case of having to keep a deer moving, and not letting him lay down, and close up that wound.

The deer was aged at 3-1/2 years old, and had a dressed weight of 179 pounds. His body appeared much bigger than that, but he had lost alot of weight chasing the does around. I later took a smaller 8-point not 100 yards from where I got “The King!” The rut is on its way; are you ready?

Below is The “big Boy” on my family room wall, along with my first buck, and my sons first buck.

Mike

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.