It’s almost Christmas, which means the hunting season is
almost over. I realize that isn’t what
Christmas is really all about, but you get the idea. This year was another amazing year but it
also comes with some depressing new. I
have now gone 2 years without harvesting a deer with my bow. I remember years back, the thought of going
an entire season without harvesting a deer with an arrow would make me
sick. There is a remedy though, many of
you know what I’m talking about and some of you soon will. It’s the joy of giving up all you your prime
spots and prime hunting time for your children. This year after a summer of practice, my two
oldest boys took to the stand and were able to harvest THREE deer! Easton took a doe very early in the season
with a crossbow, it was his first deer ever!!
He is a die hard! He went out a bunch of times and even endured
some very cold weather without a lot of insulated clothing. He put an almost perfect shot on her and we
were able to recover her less than 100 yards away!
Elijah also hit a doe early in the season, but after a
thorough search we were not able to find her.
Then in October he hit another doe.
The shot looked perfect (video) but the arrow had some stomach matter on
it. In an abundance of caution we decided to let her lay for the night. The following morning we sat in the stand
waiting for it to get light enough to track.
Well wouldn’t you know, a little
buck presented us with a perfect 8 yard shot.
Elijah again waited patiently for the perfect shot. It was cool to watch that arrow sink right
into that deer at such close distance.
Blood immediately began to shoot out of the deer’s vitals!! I knew it would be an easy track. We got down and found his doe from the
previous night. She had only gone about
60 yards. Not sure how the stomach
matter got on the arrow, he hit her right where he needed to!! The
little buck, traveled nearly 200 yards.
I was beginning to get nervous, but we were on good blood the entire
way.
I put more time in the stand this year than any other
year. I had a few opportunities to take
1 ½ year old bucks but decided to leave them alone. I also took a 40 yard shot on a decent buck
but missed horribly! It was not even
close, I still do not know what to attribute that failure to. On one sit I had a very nice buck walk right
by my stand. He had just been shot by
the neighbor, and came through dripping a healthy stream of blood. I was not able to get a shot off on him, but
tried to help out the neighbors by getting them back on his blood trail. They were not able to recover him right
away. About a month later some other
neighbors found the remains, such a waste, I hate when that happens. This was the first year that I hunted with my
new Prime Archery Compound Bow. The
Destroyer broke 2 limbs just before the hunting season, I lost all trust in
that pile of junk and had to switch brands.
Prime might not be a “premier” bow, but it is locally manufactured and
has an excellent warranty! I’ll keep you updated on it’s performance.
For the Michigan Gun season I headed up to Whiskey Creek
with Elijah, Easton and some of my friends.
We were able to harvest 2 doe with the new 450 Bushmaster! We also came across a six point that had been
killed by another hunter. Another waste
of a perfectly good deer. Our hunting
buddies botched a few good chances, one didn’t sight in his gun before we left
and missed a chip shot. Another forgot
to rack a shell in the chamber and missed a chance to shoot a six point.
I was lucky enough to draw another shotgun tag for the state
of Iowa. After numerous trips out to
Iowa to build blinds, spray fields, plant food plots, till ground, and scout
deer it was finally time to hunt.
The
weather was a bit warmer than we had hoped for, so the big guys weren’t as
mobile as they needed to be. On our first sit we saw over 40 doe and several
bucks, one was even on the hit list. It
was still early in the hunt though and the shot opportunity wasn’t the
greatest. Day 4 of the hunt we were
invited to sit on a neighbor’s farm. They
had been after a specific deer that they called “Old Koger”. He was just an old bully of a deer. Not a huge set of antlers but they were heavy
and he was just a tank of a deer. He had
passed his prime and needed to be removed from the herd. We saw a bunch of very nice deer on the hunt
but old Koger didn’t look like he was going to show his face. With about 20 minutes of shooting light left a horse of a deer
appeared on the plot about 150 yards in front of us. We looked closely at the deer and tried to positively
identify him as Old Koger. The thing
that really gave it away was that his right eye was injured and could barely
open. Benny my brother in law- stuck a
phone in my face that had a trail camera picture of him on it and said “you
make the call, is that him?” I have a
feeling that he already knew that was the guy, but he put the final decision on
me. At 120 yards, I put the 450’s
crosshairs on his body and pulled the trigger.
I would later discover that I landed a perfect double lung shot, but you
would never have guessed by the way the deer reacted. That old hog just took the bullet and almost
looked like he was just pissed off. It
took a bit before he began running right toward us. I tried racking in another shell, but my
nerves wouldn’t allow that to happen. I fumbled
with the bolt on my gun until Old Koger stumbled and fell about 80 yards from
the blind.
It wasn’t until we got down to the deer that we realized
just how big his body was. I send some
of his teeth into a biologist so I can have him aged but we are guessing he
could be as old as 9. Needless to say I was a happy dude. I owe a huge thanks to the guys that let me
hunt there farm and an even bigger thanks to Benny for introducing me to Iowa
hunting, and allowing me to hunt his lease.
The rest of that week we saw hundreds of deer, some very very big Bucks. That state is insane, if you have never
hunted there you need to make it happen.
It was definitely a year to remember! Thanks for reading.
Chad Kraker
