Marathon tracking job

[newhouse114]

Why oh why can't deer behave the same way all the time. Virtually every deer I've shot at from a tree stand has ducked my arrow or been hit in the spine or just below the spine. Last night a nice blacktail came in right at the crack of dark and posed in a slight quartering away position. He was on a hillside almost perfectly level with my stand and only 12 yards away. I have been practicing forcing myself to shoot low from the stand. Even had a string tracker attached to the arrow. I drew, released, and the buck didn't even twitch until the arrow impacted..........about two inches lower than I wanted! He whirled and ran. After about 15 seconds the string went slack. Oh boy, dead deer! I waited a bit, put on my headlamp and followed the string. About 80 yards away I came to the end of the string, OH CRAP! I backed out and got there first thing this morning  with one of my sons in tow to help me track. We went to the end of the string and found good blood. Tracked him down and around a ridge, up the other side through low brush and into the timber. If you have never tracked through zero brush or grass, just dark dirt and old fir needles you have never experienced the level of frustration that it can entail. We would try every possible direction the buck could have gone until we found another drop of blood. We finally found where he came out of the brush and headed back down hill through dry grass and ferns. Fairly easy to follow here. He dropped down into a bottom and up the other side, skirting vast patches of Himalayan blackberries. We tracked him up through a nasty tangle and found blood going two different directions! One was up a steep side hill so we tried that first. We searched for a couple of hours and found not a single drop of blood. The other option was a tunnel through a blackberry briar patch. We went back to the truck and got a machete and cleared a 100 foot path through the briars, nothing. It was about 1:30 by this time we were just about ready to call it a lost cause. We started out on the back trail, checking every possible place where there might be a divergence in the trail. My son went off into what might be called a trail through some creeping blackberries and found a tiny smear of dried blood, about the size of a fingernail trimming.  There was a dense stand of Doug Fir reprod next to where he found the blood. He dove under the limbs to have a peek and there laid my buck!!! The buck had backtracked his own trail over 50 yards before he diverted his direction of travel. This was by far the most difficult tracking job that I have been a part of. Probably over a half mile of snake track back and forth, up and down! Just before we found him I commented that by this point it would require divine intervention to find that buck. God is good!

[TURKEYFOOTGIRL]

Way to stick with it. Congrats!

[batbow]

Been there once, down on hands and knees and learning what his hoofs looked like in the dirt when there was no blood.
Congratulations!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Great buck!  Way to stick out the tracking!

[Buckeye1977]

Been there a time or two myself! Goes to show you persistence pays off! Good job not giving up and losing hope of finding that great trophy! Nice buck congrats!

Glad you found him. That is a very cool buck.

Congrats,

Bisch

[NBK]

Things are always sweeter when you "earn it".  Great job and incentive/motivation for us all to put in the effort!

[woodchucker]

Congratulations!!!!! Great Job!!!!!

[Kopper1013]

Congrats and great job sticking with it! Very cool antlers

[South MS Bowhunter]

Great way to stick it out, thank the Lord you found it!

Been there, done that too many times since 1969!...often without a happy ending but that is the reality of the hunt.

[NW Jamie]

Well done! Thanks for taking time to share the story, as well as sticking with what needed to be done.

[Swinestalker]

An emotional roller coaster that ended well. Congrats.

[Bvas]

Congrats.
Call me crazy, but I enjoy tracking deer almost as much as hunting them. Especially when there is a happy ending.
Way to stay persistent!!!

[SuperK]

[A.S.]

[twitchstick]

      Way to stay with it

[CRM_95]

Congrats and good job on sticking it out!!

[newhouse114]

One thing I would like to point out to everyone is this. DO NOT discount meat quality just because your critter was out over night!!! From shot to recovery spanned 16 hours. A low temp in the mid 50's and recovered in the mid 70's. It did find as dense of shade to expire in as was available so that was a blessing. The meat is fantastic!  The first night I ate the tenders which were exposed to all the body heat and abdominal fluids that accumulated and after a good rinse they tasted great. Backstrap last night and even my very skeptical wife thought the meat was exceptional!

[Warden609]