Steverino's Bow Hunting Rant Of The Week

[Steverino]

Sorry Lil Red,


I had to borrow your tag line post here for this morning...(I think once you read it you'll see why)

So I'm heading out to my buddy's private wooded property adjacent to his farms this past Saturday and decide to hit a hang-on stand in a tree that I put up weeks ago for when the wind and conditions would be right. It was right.

I get to my stand in the darkness (bout a good hour before daybreak) and go to affix the bottom section of my climbing sticks (I typically remove the last 5' section to dissuade potential evildoers ) and am treated to a large metal on metal clank that serves as a grandfather clock like gong which now echos throughout the deer woods.

I get my Maglight out and spot a newly affixed aluminum extension ladder secured to the tree going up to my stand with various shock cords and bungee cords. Now where in the bejeezus are my climbing stick sections??? I pan around the tree and see them discarded haphazardly in the brush behind the base of the tree. Not especially happy at this point. I test the ladder to make sure that it is properly secured to the tree and decide to just use it at this point so I can get up into my tree and get set-up before dawn.

I shine my light up under my stand- looking for the pull rope that I usually have tied off the bottom of my stands for which to hoist my bow up once I'm up on stand. Well....no pull rope. I go through my back pack and pull out some parachute cord and cut a good 25' with my folder. I tie one end to my bow and hook the other end around the back belt loop on my camo pants and begin my ascent.

I slide my prussic knot up the tree on my harness when I get up top-side and go to take my step down unto my stand platform and almost do a header over my stand as my foot becomes ensnarled in a snakes den of bungee cords that some booger has affixed from the bottom grating of my stand to the two support arms of the base .

After untangling Medusa's bungee cord den from MY stand, I begin hoisting up my bow, well about half-way up, she's stuck. I pull and pull but she aint coming up and I'm not muscling it and risk messing something up on my bow so (after a few choice muttered explanatives, mind you! I shimmy my butt down the ladder and lo and behold...what do I find you ask??? Well...it's seems that our ladder and bungee cord "friends" also have an affinity to C-clamps because there is a slew of these clamped on to the inside (tree-side) of my ladder and as luck would have it, this is where my hoist rope got wedged. I unwedge it and crawl back up (after another few choice muttered explanatives under my breath! Why C-clamps? Haven't seen that one before.

So I get all set-up and am hunting so I get in my happy state still thinking about some booger taking my stairs off, replacing it with their ladder and then making some unauthorized bungee cord home "improvements" to my living space... a see a few does off in the distance but don;t see anything else for another couple of hours.

I see a nice doe coming across a trail about twenty five yards in front of my- shes trotting up a saddle. I pull back to my anchor point and whistle. When she stops, I pull the trigger and put the whammy on her. It's a good hit and I can see her do that good death kick thing in the back legs. She stumbles and trots to a tree about fifteen yards up the saddle to the top of the ridge. I can see her lay down at the base of a tree from my stand. Good, good, good. I nock another arrow, hang it up on the hanger, and check my watch.. 9:15 in the A.M.

After about 10 minutes I begin to hear voices behind me and turn to see two middle age gents in camo sans face heading up the doe trail along my stand. Hmmm. They stop at my stand and proceed to ask if that was my stand. Why yes, yes it is my stand. The fella scrathes his head and looks a little perplexed and says after a moment, still perplexed..'Well, I thought that this was Mike's stand." (Mike's the property owner and my friend) "No...this is my stand." The conversation continues...'I need to take my ladder." "Okay...that's fine but you're gonna have to to put my climbing sticks back up here after you retieve them from the bushes that they were thrown in behind this here tree." His friend broke the silence as we stared at each other for what seemed a good while. "We waited down the farm for a good couple of hours at your truck hoping that you would come out after awhile." 'Well', I continued, "I was here a good couple of hours before daybreak and plan on hunting all day being that this is primetime fellas."

He then asks, "By the way...you wouldn't have happened to see a good six pointer with an arrow sticking out of her back would you?" "Nooooo, why?" "Well, I mage a 'good' hit on her spine yesterday and she ran off" His other friend Mr. Extension Ladder came back to conscientiousness and said 'Well...we're going to go down aways here and move one of our stands to hunt on the other side of the property this evening."

I say, 'I f you could use some discretion, I'd appreciate it as I just shot a doe fifteem minutes ago and I can see her up on the ridge." They walk off and after a short ten minutes, I hear what sounds like hammers hittin' iron. My doe gets up and trots off. They walk out and I thank them for being quiet.

I wait a good hour and a half and climb down from my stand as rain starts coming down. I found my arrow-a good pass through with bright oxyengated blood with little bubbles on the fletchings and hair. Good sign. I follow a thick blood trail up the ridge to the tree where she bedded. Alot of very thick coagulated blood. I begin looking in the direction that I saw her trot off and can find no other blood. I do the smaller-widdening circle and cannot find any more blood.

I spent the next three hours in a torrential downpour looking for this deer. I found her bllod trail very briefly in an area a good 100 yards away from where she bedded down but nothing after that.

It made me sick. I had to give up the search after it began thundering and lightening very badly.

I went back yesterday and spent the better part of the day but it had rained a gully washer all night and was still raining yesterday.

I've never lost an animal hunting and I believe that it was a good hit and that doe has expired somewheres up on that ridge. Ultimately, it's my responsibility to recover that animal and the same thing could have certainly happened on public property but I can't help wonder if my deer would have been under the tree I had seen if these two boogers wouldn't have happened along when they did.

The spined deer ticked me off too. There's enough anti-hunters around that seeing a deer running around an arrow stick out of it's spine, would have ammunition to say see, this why hunting should be banned. I understand things happen when you shoot but to this feller, the spine was a 'good' hit. Ahhhhhhhrrrr

They should have been out looking for that buck instead of traipsing around the deer woods moving stands messing up other hunters.

I plan on giving my buddy a call this morning as I know him to be an ethical hunter that I respect. I feel that he needs to know who is hunting his property.

Also a warning, please be carefull when arriving to your own treestands in the woods...even on private property. There may be some "modifications" that you didn't make courtesy of your fellow hunters.