Keep Tweaking Your Treestand Location In Order To Capitalize On a Close Range Bow Shot!
by Joe Bucher

"All of the deer are crossing by the top of that draw", whispered cameraman Gabor Ujvary. I nodded in agreement, and whispered back, "Yeah, they're all at least 60 yards from us. If we continue to see this the rest of the morning, we're gonna move our stands to that tree right above the draw." Four more deer passed by that draw top crossing before lunchtime, while not a single deer wandered through the many trails situated around our stand. As soon as the action subsided, and we were fairly certain the majority of the deer had bedded for the morning, Gabor and I descended and began the "take down". Within twenty minutes, we were reset in the new location. Then, we quietly left for lunch, agreeing not to return to this location until tomorrow morning.

The next morning, we were positioned in our new location anxious to see what would happen. But, just before climbing into the new set up, I took the time to build two mock scrapes with James Valley's Wallhanger Gel Scent at positions that would hopefully stop any passing deer for a quick shot. Surprisingly, this was an uneventful outing so far with not a single deer climbing up the huge ridge to our south, and consequently, we had no action on our promising stand site at 8:30 a.m. I was beginning to doubt the move we had made and all the work we had put into painstakingly rehanging our stands, when suddenly I spotted a single doe approaching -- heading directly at us.

The doe had not taken the same path that all the deer had yesterday, yet she was going to pass by the same draw top intersection putting her inside 20 yards from our set up. It was immediately obvious by the doe's heavy panting and horizontal tail that she was in heat, and being chased. In fact, she kept looking back over her shoulder -- a dead giveaway that a trailing buck was nearby. Much to my surprise, when she looked back, she took a few steps forward and stopped right in front of my newly made mock scrape, and began investigating the newly exposed bare earth. Then, she lifted her head and began to lick the overhanging branches that I had dosed with Wallhanger. Looking back again, she suddenly turned and scampered off into thick underbrush.

I kept reminding both my cameraman and myself to keep our eyes trained on the area in which the doe had come from even though nearly ten minutes had passed without any sign of an approaching / trailing buck. However, just when we thought this wasn't going to happen, the faint sound of a grunt broke thru the chatter or squirrels and the alarm of a blue jay. I no sooner grabbed my bow when a beautiful white racked buck with high symmetrical tines arrived on the scene. Immediately I stood up, while he was behind a juniper tree and drew my bow quickly. I wanted to make sure I was at full draw before the buck passed by the juniper, since I had very little screening cover. In retrospect, this turned out to be a very wise move.

As soon as the buck cleared the cover of the juniper, he looked our way and spotted our silhouettes in the naked tree. His mannerisms completely changed as he bobbed, weaved, and stomped cautiously forward. While he couldn't smell us, he was definitely uneasy about the new shadowed blob sitting in the top of that skinny trunked maple. Yet, his will to breed made him put his nose back down to the ground one last time to sniff the print remnants of the passing estrus doe. This was my perfect opportunity to line up my sights and take aim. He's at 18 yards, I quickly deducted. He's broadside. He's got great tine length and symmetry. It's a Pope & Young 8 pointer. Shoot! However, the wary, nervous buck flinched almost immediately doing one of those amazing "jump the string" dips with his body sending the Thunderhead 100 broadhead high of my intended target --- anchoring it just an inch or so to the right of the left shoulder, but high.

The buck scurried off down the ridge with the arrow holding solid in an upright position. It looked like I had about 8 inches of penetration. Immediately, I was worried about the shot placement.

We decided to head in for lunch, examine the shot on camera in order to determine exact shot placement, and then plan our recovery accordingly. Much to our disappointment, my initial hunch turned out to be correct. The buck had "jumped the string" and I had a high, but hopefully lethal hit. However, we both knew there wouldn't be much of a blood trail. As it turned out, we were too right. After several hours of searching, we couldn't find a single drop of blood, nor a single strand of hair. This was going to be one tough recovery job. No blood sign.

Many hunters make the mistaken assumption that such hits aren't lethal. The old adage, "if there's no blood sign, the deer probably lived", didn't apply here. Four hours later, I found the buck lying dead in his bedding area at the top of ridge right underneath four large junipers that were all rubbed. I can only attribute our success in finding this animal to my knowledge of the area we were hunting, and the buck's actual bedding area. Interestingly, the buck had not bleed a single drop of blood anywhere. This included in his death bed. The angle of the shot, along with the shot placement simply did not allow it. He bled internally. It was a totally lethal shot, yet there was no sign beyond our own recollection and the video evidence of the precise shot placement. Also of interest, the fixed broadhead design of the Thunderhead along with the chisel point were both major advantages here. Since this hit obviously crunched thru some bone, it put an enormous test on both the point and the blades. The chisel point stayed totally sharp and intact allowing maximum penetration, while the blades stayed on the broadhead, in tact, to do there deadly lethal damage. The result was a stone dead buck -- hit high, but just slicing the top of the front lung area.