The following story is about a bow hunt in which a buck surprised the archer (me) at close range.. As it turned out, I was able to slow down the rapid progression of events so that I could make a successful shot on the deer. I’m not an expert archery hunter, but I was able to turn around a hunting mistake that could have resulted in failure. And as always, I review the hunt and make observations, ask questions, and attempt to find the right answers.

Skully 2

By Mike Bowman

At 8:45 am on a cold November morning, I had been up in my tree stand for about two hours. By then the weather was pleasant and the temperature had climbed to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Because almost all of the leaves had fallen from the trees, I decided to keep still and silent and not use either the grunt call or the rattle box that morning. Three tactics that I did employ were the use of camo make up, a scent wick soaked in Code Blue doe urine, and a chaw of black licorice. Having not seen a single deer all morning long, my mind began to wander, unfortunately.

My tree stand faced east and I was generally facing east, but my head was completely someplace else. I had become engrossed by an intermittent noise in the thick brush to my right (south), trying to identify it. Swishing sounds of dry leaves were coming from that direction at a distance of maybe thirty yards, but I couldn’t see any movement. It started to drive me crazy. I really wanted to identify that intermittent sound and its exact source. I remember thinking that it couldn’t be deer because deer don’t make that much noise walking through the fall woods, plus the southwest wind would probably enable me to smell them since I was down wind. Truthfully, I was pretty sure that turkeys were the noise makers, but one can never be too sure when hunting Whitetails. Deer often present themselves in ways that contradict the rules. Eventually, I spotted a jake walking through the brush. Moments later I saw a second turkey, but I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, and it intrigued me. Having confirmed the first noise source, I resumed scanning the brushy cover around me and the open woods downhill.

As soon as I turned my head left, I was shocked to see a set of approaching antlers passing through a shaft of weak sunlight amid the hawthorns and briars. A medium-size buck was entering my area via a lightly used trail. At a distance of about twenty yards the buck’s movement made little noise, but I did eventually hear his footsteps as well as a single clear grunt. I quickly lifted the nocked arrow onto the launchers using my gloved left index finger. I looked down in order to clip my release onto the string and waited for the buck to pass behind some tall brush. I drew back my bow, knowing that I should have seen him much sooner. Events were transpiring too fast for me.

My feet were facing the wrong way and I needed to carefully turn them on the stand so that they aligned in a east‑west stance (left foot east, right foot west) for the broadside shot that should develop if the buck kept coming. After completing my maneuver, I saw that the buck was approaching the kill zone too quickly and I had not yet figured out my shot. I decided to slow the buck’s approach by vocally making the grunt of a young deer: “MA!” He paused, casually scanned ahead for a few seconds, then began walking again. I used the pause to look ahead on the trail and identify an arrow trajectory path through the tangled cover (a shooting lane). I put the sight pin on him.

At that moment and thereafter, he was walking about ten yards from my stand and I needed to stop him again to make the shot. However, at the sound of my next grunt he stopped short of the shooting lane next to a small tree that blocked my view of his vital area. Also, he was slightly left of a true broadside shot and I didn’t like that. He apparently didn’t smell me, though he was directly down wind. With heart pounding, I waited for his next move.

He started walking again and as he cleared the tree I grunted for a third time. Actually, I didn’t grunt. Instead I made a drawn out, higher pitched sound to resemble a fawn bleat: “MA-a-a!” He was very close and I wanted him stopped quickly, yet I didn’t want to spook him (as if a fawn bleat from above was normal). He stopped clear of the tree and started scanning the surroundings. With my kisser button firmly anchored and the sight pin locked onto the intersection of the buck’s leg and chest, I squeezed the release trigger and sent the arrow on its way.

Why aim so low? There is a “sound” reason for this. Over the years I have observed that deer usually “duck” at the sound of the bow, sometimes even throwing their front legs forward while collapsing their hind legs in preparation for the jump away from the sound. Their reaction occurs quicker than the blink of an eye, causing deer to drop down several inches before the arrow even reaches them. An arrow initially aimed broadside at the chest of the deer can become a complete miss. By aiming lower, the deer will “drop into the arrow,” as the saying goes. There are, of course, no guarantees on where a Whitetail will be at the moment the arrow arrives.

On this day, my broadhead struck the deer almost in the middle of the shoulder blade, just missing that “reinforcing spar” of bone that lies along its midline. The Wasp Hammer SST punched right through the plate, and completely through both lungs. Eventually it dragged to a stop in the muscle of the left shoulder, not even puncturing the hide. While not a complete pass‑through shot, it was a good double-lung hit. The buck immediately ran down the hill, but not at full Whitetail speed. With both shoulders damaged, he seemed to be “snow plowing” as he trampled brush and cut between trees. The arrow (with one green and two white vanes) was clearly flagging up and down in synch with his flight, providing me with a good indication of his direction of travel into the open woods.

Twenty yards away the buck snapped the arrow in two while running past a tree. I heard the sounds of a few more limbs snapping after he disappeared into the dark pines, and then all went silent. With my ears focused in his direction, I could only hear the occasional normal rush of the wind and some distant crows. Was he down, or was he still running through the woods?

I reigned in my adrenalin and pulled out the walkie talkie to update the wife on my progress. She seemed pleased, at least in a “home economics” sort of way. I prepared the hauling line and lowered the bow. Once it was safely on the ground, I stowed my other gear, hooked my safety harness to the climbing tether, and with careful deliberation descended the ladder. I reassured myself that a deer with a broadhead snapped off in him was very unlikely to have traveled far. But, of course, you never know.

On the ground I unhooked my bow from the hauling line and nocked up an arrow just in case. I weaved my way downhill to the impact point but found no blood. After a few slow steps in the trampled brush I spotted a couple of drops of blood. In fact, I detected the smell of blood in the air. Continuing forward, I found the broken arrow lying on some damp moss near a tree and compared its length to my nocked arrow. It had bright red blood on it where the front eight inches of shaft was missing. With this discovery, I crept forward through the brush, eventually stepping into the pines of the open woods. I finally stood erect, allowing my arms to rest at my side while my eyes adjusted to the darker setting. After a few more steps I spotted the white belly of a buck laying on his side at about twenty yards. He was motionless as I approached, and after testing for eye reactions I confirmed that he was definitely dead.

Lessons

Nobody’s perfect, so what did I do wrong and what did I do right that morning? I’ll consider things chronologically. First of all, at home, I had washed up with a scent‑free hunter soap. That, and the fact that I was wearing clothes that had been laundered in a hunter soap, satisfied the minimum requirements for scent control. In addition, I put a plug of black licorice in my mouth. I’ve read that the anise aroma interests deer, and it definitely covers breath odors that might spook them. I also hung a fresh scent wick in a nearby tree and wore camo face make up. These practices help to both attract deer and avoid spooking them. Did the scent wick attract the buck? Perhaps so. The prevailing southwest wind would have been blowing it, and my scent, right in his direction.

Secondly, I don’t absolutely know the effect of my decision to not use the grunt call or the rattle box. I reasoned that with fewer leaves on the trees the chances were somewhat increased for being “picked off” due to movement. I admit, however, that my buck wasn’t very wary. Bucks often get careless during the rut, but I never count on it.

Third, I almost blew it by lapsing into an activity other than hunting. I became distracted and watched the wrong “nature channel.” Because of this, I very nearly missed spotting the approaching buck. When I heard the swishing noises to my right, I had formed an opinion based on experience as to the source of the noise. And as things turned out, I was correct in identifying it as turkeys without actually seeing them. However, I wanted to visually confirm the turkeys. This was unnecessary entertainment. I had allowed the perceived need to I.D. turkeys, bunnies, squirrels, or other small game interrupt my normal visual scan for deer. For me, the result was that the buck got in closer to me before I saw him. In fact he almost reached a point where I couldn’t make a shot. Luckily I saw the turkeys, returned to my normal scanning routine, and had just the minimum amount of time left to set up for a shot.

Fourth, under the pressure of the rapidly approaching buck, I synchronized my draw to the moment when the buck walked past some tall brush that obscured me. With deer so close, there is a danger of being picked off during the draw. The closeness of the buck was a negative ripple effect of my breaking away from the normal scanning routine. Had I not been turkey watching, the buck would have been spotted much farther away.

Fifth, I made a correct move on the foot platform. My feet were not yet in the normal alignment for such a shot and I needed to change them very carefully, i.e., slowly, or I’d spook the deer. I estimated that I was a little short on the time needed to prepare for the shot. After gingerly adjusting my stance, I said “MA!” Somehow, I had the presence of mind to vocally take control of events by grunting. The buck stopped to take a look around. The pause gave me the extra time that I needed and improved my chances for success. From that moment on, the odds swung in my favor. The next grunt and the bleat were extensions of my original decision to vocally slow the buck’s approach. As imperfect as this method is (it may not stop him, and you can be spotted), it succeeded three times in stopping him and finally gave me the extra time to make the shot.

Last of all, how did I do with the shot itself? I did OK, but it was not ideal. From experience, I remembered two things that deer do: first, at close range deer often react with stunning quickness and power to the sound of the bow, and second, stopped deer need more time to jump away from such sounds. Therefore, shot placement improves by stopping a deer before the shot. Why? Although you never know in which direction a Whitetail will jump (forward, backward, sideways, etc.), you do know that before they jump in any direction, they must precede it with a drop down of a few unpredictable inches. Stopped deer use extra time to drop and jump because they must first unlock their muscles, which gives the deer less time to completely “duck” an arrow. My aim point was low in anticipation of his drop; right at the bottom of his chest. I could have aimed even lower, but from experience I don’t aim completely off of a stopped deer. As it turned out the arrow made a lethal double‑lung hit, even though it had to penetrate a shoulder blade to do it. I credit my decision to aim low, but credit must also go to the Wasp broadhead.

Epilogue

Three years ago I arrowed a big buck and had a skull mount made of him. My wife named him “Skully” (even though she didn’t like him at first). Although this buck is smaller, he rates an honorable mention as “Skully 2.”

“Skully 2”