Author Topic: Let me tell you about my evening.....  (Read 14718 times)

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Let me tell you about my evening.....
« on: Oct 07, 2011, 07:20:23 PM »
I went out hunting after work today. Nice fall day in the southern Adirondacks.  Got into my stand around 4:30. Its situated in a nice thick balsam swamp.  At 6:30 I hear crunching coming from my right on the other side of the little stream I'm hunting by.  I get ready and I can see its a deer., I see its legs but nothing else.  It stops behind a big tree and I pull back.. It steps out and I see its a big doe. I shoot and hear thwack. That doe jumps into the  stream, stumbles about for a few seconds and then jumps up and runs off into the thick swamp. I can hear slow down and then nothing.
      By this time its starting to get dark in the swamp so I climb down and walk over to where the deer jumped out of the stream and onto the bank. there is water and mud everywhere.  I look across the stream. Its only 4 feet wide and I don't see my arrow or any blood. I start following the deer's track in the mud. You can tell there is water dripping off her but no blood. no arrow. 
       Finnaly her tracks dissappear, so I start doing half circle sweeps from the last spot I found her tracks.  As I'm doing a sweep, I got my little 2 AA battery mag light out, its dark, the leaves on the ground happen to be all red with dark spots on them, and I can't find blood. I decide to cut back to the stream to cross where she was when I shot her. I start walking that way when I see a small moss covered clearing, I step out into it and sink into muck up to my knee! I lost my balance and my other leg went in and as I tried to catch my self so did my right arm. It was a peat bog. I was sinking fast. I quickly got my arm out, saw a small mound with a hemlock growing out of it behind me. I tossed my bow onto the mound and reached out and grabbed a branch. by this time I had sunk up to my butt. I finally worked my left leg out and got it onto a tree root. I then pulled on the branch stepped up onto the tree root. I got my right leg out but minus my boot! Crap!   I had to step back into the muck with just my sock on and dig my boot out by hand. I finally got that out.  Got onto the mound, put my boot back on. Now I'm frustrated as hell.
    I finally make it back to the stream, cross over to where the doe was standing when I shot her and noticed 2 little branches thinner than a pencil, that might have defleceted the arrow. I don't know if they did or not because I can't find any sign of the arrow. (I really should get lumi-nocks) I don't see any blood or hair on that side of the stream either. So I decide to cross back over and get my climber and go home for the night and come back in the morning to look for her. As I'm crossing back over the stream, my boot gets stuck again in the muck and down I go. Grrrrrrr.   
       Now I'm home, I hate the waiting but there was no way I was going to go stumbling around an unfamiliar swamp at night by my self. I'll be out at first light looking for her or any sign that I hit her.  I just hate waiting and not knowing.    :P
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline upstatehunter

  • 30 Point Buck
  • ********
  • Posts: 6,879
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #1 on: Oct 07, 2011, 07:36:16 PM »
First I'm really glad your OK!! Scary stuff there.....Hope you find some blood and your deer!!  Sounds like you might have ticked a limb and it made the arrow hit her at a funny angle, and high....???  If it didn't go through her it will take some time to fill up and bleed out......she may be right where you heard her slow down and stop.... ;)

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #2 on: Oct 07, 2011, 07:47:06 PM »
First I'm really glad your OK!! Scary stuff there.....Hope you find some blood and your deer!!  Sounds like you might have ticked a limb and it made the arrow hit her at a funny angle, and high....???  If it didn't go through her it will take some time to fill up and bleed out......she may be right where you heard her slow down and stop.... ;)

For a while there I thought, great, I'm gonna be stuck in the middle of a swamp with no one to find me....at least my wife knows where my spot is and if I don't contact her by 9:00, who to call.

I hope I find her or I find the arrow. that way I can tell one way or the other if I hit her for sure.
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline Raquettedacker

  • Cactus Buck
  • *********
  • Posts: 13,745
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #3 on: Oct 07, 2011, 07:49:21 PM »
Geezzzzzz..   Glad you got out Mike...  And glad you got your boot back.. ;D     At least you dont have to worry about rain tonight...   Good luck...
"Dying is the easy part. Learning how to live is the hard part..."

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #4 on: Oct 07, 2011, 08:05:45 PM »
Geezzzzzz..   Glad you got out Mike...  And glad you got your boot back.. ;D     At least you dont have to worry about rain tonight...   Good luck...

Thank you.
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #5 on: Oct 08, 2011, 10:55:03 AM »
Ok I got out in the woods by 7 this morning. I did not find the arrow but I did find blood about 70 yards from where I shot the doe. I started tracking her through the thickest balsam and witch hobble. Made for slow going. She then crossed a stream. Of course when I went to cross it I slipped on the moss covered rocks and to a bath.  :-[ I then tracked her into a thicket of blackberry bushes where I found she bedded for the night.  Looks like a gut shot.  I started tracking from the bed and found blood for another 100 yards and then nothing.  I got calls into 3 different dec deer trackers.  I hope one of them gets back to me soon.
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline chuckrudy

  • 10 Pointer
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,259
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #6 on: Oct 08, 2011, 11:33:23 AM »
good luck on finding the deer.   know what you went through with the mud...happened with me once when i was trout fishing a new stream.  never went back to that stream again
no information

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #7 on: Oct 08, 2011, 12:18:47 PM »
I got John, Jeanneney, the guy who wrote the book on leased dog deer tracking, coming to help.  Said he'd be here by 2:30,  I just hope this warm day doesn't ruin the meat.  :-\
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline Issiah

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,173
    • Hunting, Fishing and Trapping New York
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #8 on: Oct 08, 2011, 12:49:07 PM »
Hope you find it,  sounds like you are doin evetrything you can,,  that's all you can do

halfrack33

  • Guest
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #9 on: Oct 08, 2011, 12:50:20 PM »
Good luck. That sounds like its trackable!

Offline stka

  • 30 Point Buck
  • ********
  • Posts: 6,221
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #10 on: Oct 08, 2011, 01:13:29 PM »
Good luck, I've been there but never used the dogs. Glad you got on her trail, hope you find her today.

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #11 on: Oct 08, 2011, 06:53:10 PM »
Well the deer tracking guy came with his dog. We spent 2.5 hours tracking that dang deer from the spot where I last found blood. We went through 6 foot tall blackberry thorn thickets, through a balsam swamp, across a peat bog, up a mountain where we found 1 drop of blood on a log. this was a good 600 yards from where I last found blood.  That little dog was amazing. Unfortunately that was all we found. We tracked that deer up one mountain down the backside acrross another swamp. You could see its tracks.Then we went through a clear cut that was loaded with blackberries. Then it went up another mountain with no problem. by this time we had gone almost a mile. Thats when we determined I had not hit the deer bad and it was still running around no problem. We think that I hit muscle and missed anything vital. the blood must of clotted up. We quit before it got dark and started following an old logging road out of the woods. We ended up coming out on the main road a good 1/2 mile from where we parked the trucks. At least I feel better knowing that I did my best to track it. Mr Jeanneny said I had done a good job tracking it and marking its trail to its last know blood spot. I did give him a $40 donation to cover gas and his time coming out to help me.
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

Offline Deposit

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,487
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #12 on: Oct 08, 2011, 07:05:37 PM »
Yep that happens, but you did everything possible to find that deer. There will be a next time ;)

Offline stka

  • 30 Point Buck
  • ********
  • Posts: 6,221
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #13 on: Oct 08, 2011, 07:07:15 PM »
That's a long track job. Sounds like she could still be running around. Did you ever find the arrow?

Offline adkRoy

  • 12 Pointer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,068
  • Beware, the Ghost Deer are going to get you!!!!
Re: Let me tell you about my evening.....
« Reply #14 on: Oct 08, 2011, 07:10:13 PM »
We looked and looked but no arrow. Its a mystery to me where the heck that thing went.  Its somewheres in that swamp.
Tresspassing on my land is bad, Tresspassing on my land with an ATV will get you shot!

 


SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2024, SimplePortal