Well, the deer season for Indiana closed today. I thought I'd give it one last try, I wasn't about to let this year be the first year in a long time that I didn't take a deer.
As I walked out to the stand this afternoon, I spooked a yearling from the woods. I thought I was toast for the rest of the day, but with the storm and cool weather the deer were moving. About 20 minutes later, I had 3 yearlings, an adult doe and another yearling walk by at 25-30 Yds, and the doe was looking at me the whole time. She let her guard down for a minute, and I had 90% of the creep taken out of the trigger in the crossbow before she had enough and turned to leave. She turned the wrong way, so I couldn't take the shot. The sear had moved enough that I couldn't engage the safety. If she would have stood there for another second, I would have had time to get the shot off. Oh well.
Not 15 minutes later a single doe ambled past, occasionally stopping to scrape at acorns. She stopped in one shooting lane, but every time I moved to get the crossbow in position, she heard the snow that had fallen on me creak, and she'd look at me. I had a good inch covering me and the crossbow. We played this game for a couple of minutes before she gave up on the acorns and walked away. It was getting close to the end of shooting time before I noticed two more deer coming down the trail that I have the Cuddy Trail Cam on. I was able to get in position while they were still 100+ Yds away and couldn't hear me. The doe paused in front of the Cuddy and I think she was in range for a pic. I thought "at least I'll have a good look at what could have been." She walked another 30 feet and stopped, just clear of a couple of trees. I barely touched the trigger, and I heard the bolt hit what sounded like a hollow watermelon. Both deer jumped and stopped behind a group of trees. I heard one deer snort, (I couldn't see them) and then all was quiet. I didn't see or hear a deer after that. After waiting about 15 minutes I decided to get down and look because the snow was still coming down really hard, and I didn't want any sign to be covered up. After a bit of searching I found the bolt stuck in the ground, missing one fletching and a few flecks of blood were on the snow next to it.
I followed the trail that the deer made in the snow, and came upon the doe not 50 feet further away. She died really quick (double lung), and the other deer must have snorted when she dropped. This is the 2nd deer that I've taken with these HyperShock mechanical 100g broadheads, and I'm really pleased with how fast they kill the deer. Neither of them travelled more than 20 yds.
Pics to follow tomorrow, maybe a "before" pic too, if I'm lucky.
