Blacktail hunting with my Daughter

Andrew L.
on 9/15/13 8:12 am - Klamath Falls, OR

RNY on 04/11/12

I Took my daughter with me to deer camp this weekend, she is my good luck charm. Shot one of these pests on the way there. It was getting late with about 30min of light left so we headed straight to the blind first. We were there about 15 min when some doe's came in while looking up the hill the whole time. I told my daughter there was something else coming in. Well, I was right and ready! This year, I situate the blind in a slightly different location at the edge of a water hole my Dad and I have been hunting for years. The new location has better all day shade and I feel works better for how the deer come to water. There is a small cedar tree on one side and I cut a small shooting window through it for my blind. We put my Dad's blind up for both of us to hunt out of and it is much bigger, I didn't take that into account. The buck came in that one spot that was a tight shooting window. He had his head down drinking slightly quartering to us but it was a dream shot at 20 yards. When I shot, I saw my arrow kick left and I instantly got sick to my stomach! I said oh know about the time the arrow struck the buck in the left eye and buried to the fletching with the remainder of the arrow exiting the buck's neck. We watched him run off and waited replaying the shot over and over whit my daughter. My little girl kept consoling me which was sweet but I knew it was a horrible shot and the odds of recovery were slim. When we exited the blind it was dark but with the flashlights we started to see exceedingly good blood in about 20 yards and after about 30 yards I knew I had hit a major neck artery. We went to camp and called a buddy who was sitting in my ladder stand a few miles away. It took him about 30min to navigate the rough roads to camp so we waited and the three of us went back to track. We quickly found the spot where we stopped tracking and basically walked to the buck from there, I didn't post all the blood trail but it was substantial and you could see pools where he had coughed blood up. Horrible shot but it turned out in our favor this time. What an awesome day to share with my daughter and best friend who had a kidney transplant exactly one year ago today! This buck was taken in Keno unit and is likely a benchleg hybrid but sure has a lot of Blactail characteristics. I was shooting a Hoyt Vortec set at 75lb with 340 spined ICS Hunters, 125gr Rocky Mountain Ironheads sharpened by me(they don't get much better! :) ) arrow weight at 475gr traveling around 275fps. On a side note, my daughter and I were laughing and joking about the number 13 associated with this buck. The year is 2013, she is 13 years old, I have been hunting with this bow for 13 years, this was the 13th day of deer hunting for me this year and the deer was shot on Friday the 13th. :) Thanks everybody for the well wishes for my buddy, it was a heck of a way to celebrate 1 year on a new kidney and a new lease on life. It is two years sense I initially weighed in with my Bariatric Surgeon's office to start my journey. I am 150lb lighter than I was then and enjoying life...more good things to come.