After surgery in January for a broken disc in my neck (and the nerve damage that happened with the injury), I wasn’t sure bow hunting was still going to be an option. After months of recovery I still can’t pull a 60 lb bow, but after turning the bow down to 50 I was (barely) in business. I was only able to sight in the 20 yard pin (I can only pull the bow a few times before losing the ability) so I knew I needed close shots. Saturday the weather was cold and dreary and perfect for deer movement. This guy stayed around for a while and I could see he was at least 3 years old and didn’t have the nice antlers that should have come with age, so I decided to try and take him. At the shot he was quartering away, and I settled the pin on the crease, halfway down the chest. He began to move at the shot, and I worried that the slow/heavy arrow might not arrive before he cleared out. Luckily the arrow hit before he moved towards the exit, but he still managed to twist to face away more than he had been when the arrow was released. Arrow entered where I had aimed, but his twisting resulted in a line that took it between the shoulder and ribs, then out the throat. Not the shot I wanted at all. Still, as he began to run his left front leg was dangling as if broken, and when I picked up the binos to look at the spot where he entered the brush, there was a big spray of blood on the grass and I felt better. He made it almost 75 yards before bleeding out, and my challenge while trailing the deer was to stay out of the bloody grass. Now the fat deer is quartered and iced, waiting for further butchering on Monday.
I’ve been following Ranch Fairy on YouTube for a couple of years now, and his advice on shooting heavy arrows paid off again. A 125 grain Magnus Black Hornet Serrazor and a 100 grain insert drove the arrow through and clipped five ribs before passing through with only 50 lbs. Next time I’ll wait for a full broadside shot just to minimize the chance of this happening again.
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