The Evening of 11-3

Well, I blew it. I was sitting in my deer stand. I was focused on a deer that ran off behind me to my left. All I could see was the tail end of it. So I thought I'd try to call it back to me. So I was working hard, thinking I could maybe get it back. When all of sudden I hear a bunch of leaves crushing to my right (bad side for a right hand bow shooter). I knew it was a deer even before I looked. So I slowly turned my head and sure enough out of the corner of my eye, it was a 8 point buck about 10 yards from me.

So now what do I do? I'm sitting looking straight forward and the buck is too my right looking straight at me. I tried to very slowly turn that way but every time I did, he would look a little closer at me. Finally, he had had enough. So he turned to his right and started to walk into thicker woods. So I decided to make my move. I turned to my right and stood up. He didn't hear me because he was making a lot of noise going through the thick woods. I found a spot and decided when he crossed there, I was going to let the arrow go. Well, of course Murphy's law was there and when the buck got there, his butt end was pointing directly at me. I didn't want to shoot him up the butt so I decided to make a little noise to see if I could get him to turn a bit. Well, it worked. The buck turned just a little towards me to see what the noise was. So I let the arrow fly. All of a sudden, the buck jumps up and off to his right he runs. What the heck? Oh crap, I hit the one big branch between me and him. (Murphy's Law) Of course, there sits my arrow.....stuck in the dirty. Dang it!!! Oh well. That's how it goes sometimes.

The Morning - 11-3

Well, I went out this morning.....was a little late in getting out there. As I was walking along our bean field to get to the edge of the woods, I thought I saw a deer standing on the edge of the field. Of course it was pretty dark out still so I wasn't going to be able to shoot it but it did get the blood pumping. Sure enough, it was a deer. Because I took a couple more steps and off it ran into the woods. I could hear it going through the woods.Well, I thought, maybe they'll come back (yea, right).

So off to my deer stand I went. As I started to walk into the woods, I hear the deer (yes, more then one) run farther into the woods. I guess you can win them all. (But one would be nice.)

At about 9:15am, a doe started to walk on the edge of the bean field that I just had walked in on. She was pretty good size but I said I wasn't going to shoot a doe. She was about 40 - 45 yards away. So I thought I'd wait for the rest of her "party". Well, she decided to head north away from my stand along the bean field. Oh, well. Maybe next time. I'm planning on going back out tonight again.

Joe's Hunting Blog

Well, I started bow hunting this year....first time picking up a bow in 20 years. Actually I started last month, October. See, I own about 40 acres in Minnesota. About 20 of it is wooded and there are bunch of deer running around here.

So last January I purchased a used Mathews bow off of Ebay. I got a Mathews LX and I think I got a pretty good deal. Also, I joined an local archery league....figured I needed to practice a bit. Good thing I did join.....'cause boy did I need to practice. At the end of the 16 weeks of league, I was getting pretty good. I was shooting about 295 out of 300......never did get a perfect score. Maybe next year. I did however get a "robin hood".
I couldn't believe it. This was about 2 months after I purchased the bow. These Mathews bows shoot really straight. Now if I only can get a deer with it.