Mid October, I made my way down to deer camp after getting out of work late that morning. Almost my entire drive down I talked strategy with Sam, debating where to sit based on what we’ve been seeing, early season movement, still on summer patterns and wind direction. There was a stand I hung mid summer that had yet to have a good hunting wind direction any day of the young season, that was until October 15th, and it had me pulling to sit that stand. Sam and I went back and forth about a good early season stand, and not having seen anything on camera yet I decided to sit this stand that I had been keeping an eye on for the right conditions. There was a storm that was going to roll through over night so I figured any rainfall would wash my scent away so I could pull cards off my cameras surrounding my setup as well as get a sit in with the perfect wind direction.

I stretched out for a quick 40 minute nap before driving around to the other side of the property for my evening hunt. I slowly snuck down to my stand, stopping every 40-50 yards to check the wind direction to make sure my weather app wasn’t lying to me. The wind was perfect, blowing from the direction I thought the deer would be and their travel corridor towards my stand setup. I made it to my seat about 2 o’clock, setup my bag, knocked an arrow and hung my bow within reach on my left side, making minimal movement for being a right handed shooter.

Nearly five hours went by before I saw my first deer of the evening, a year and a half old buck with spike antlers not much longer than his ears. I turned on my GoPro and picked up my bow, he’s not a deer I’m looking to harvest but I figured the practice of my movements would be good on a deer that I wasn’t too worried about spooking. After watching him for about 15 seconds, which seems like 15 minutes in the deer hunting world, I noticed more movement out of the corner of my eye, it was anther buck making a scrape, not even 35 yards from my stand. The problem was I could barely see his body and even less of his antlers, as he was working the scrape on the opposite side of the medium sized tree from where I was sitting. After another 10 seconds he made his was around the tree and down the same path as the younger buck, just as I had thought they would travel. As he cleared the branches I could see his rack, tall but narrower than other deer we had on camera, then his neck came into sight, big thick neck for only the second week of October, finally his body came into sight, big body, slight sway in his back and a brisket hanging from just below his neck. I knew this was a mature deer as I looked him over again while pulling my bow back and settling my anchoring points with the string.

He stepped to 25 yards, and before I could even make a noise to stop him, he stops on his own, looking forward to the younger deer he was following. I placed my pin right behind his shoulder and gently squeezed back on the trigger of my release. The bow let the arrow fly and as the lighted knock at the rear of the arrow traveled towards the deer I knew it was going to land just a touch high, but the deer was hit solid and took off down hill before making a J-hook and running parallel across the hill. Not yet celebrating until I could watch him fall, I watched him run and once out of sight I listened for anything that might come next. Off in the distance I could hear a deer blow twice, 20 seconds later I swear I could hear a deer “crash”, making a bunch of noise in the leaves as if he had fallen and passed.

Thirty minutes of legal shooting light left and that young buck had come back to see what the commotion was all about, so I sat there quietly texting my wife to tell her what just happened and Tyson to see if he could come blood trail with me. At dark I climbed down, hiked back to the truck and drove over to Tyson’s who wasn’t that far down the road. At first he thought I was joking with him, then after seeing the excitement I had he too got excited and gave me a hug. We took time to watch the footage from my GoPro, he thought the shot looked high and back, I knew it was a little high but not as far back as he thought. Then we had to make a decision, leave the deer for a little bit longer or go track him. There were two driving factors in my head, first, the incoming storm that had for some reason held off, if we could beat the storm we could use the blood trail to find him, by the morning the blood trail would be washed away. Second, coyotes are heavy in this area, leaving a deer over night brings the possibility of losing some or all of the meat to the local coyotes that would gladly take an easy meal.

So we jumped in the truck and headed back up the hill with lights and my camera in tow, as well as my rain jacket. We walked to the shot and looked for first blood, found it within five yards of the shot. Not yet a heavy flow up a good start, I told Tyson that we would base how hard and far we pushed based on the amount of blood. I wanted to give it an honest go to try and recover the deer and use all the meat, so as long as we didn’t jump the deer, I would track at least 100 yards and reevaluate. I looked for blood with the light, as I found heavier spots or every 10 yards Tyson would tie a marker incase we had to back out and come back in the morning. When we stopped every 10 yards we would shut off our lights and listen for 10 to 15 seconds for any kind of movement and look for my green lighted knock. As we went further the blood trail got heavier, you could tell that he was losing blood from both sides of his body now, entrance and exit of the arrow. At the 70 yard mark there were two bigger pools with spray marks around it, I remember telling Tyson that this must be where he stood and blew, not fully knowing what had happened to him.

I went another 15 yards and as I was examining the next spot of blood Tyson tells me to look to my left. There he was, laying there passed away, antlers sticking up where he had fallen about 15 seconds after he blew. We were excited, pumped, smiling, high-fiving, and even a big hug. When I finally put my hands on the deer he was stiff, it really was him that I heard fall about 90 minutes before. He was beautiful, a high and tight rack, thick neck, and a big body, everything you look for in a mature deer. We spent the next 15 minutes talking about the hunt, the shot placement was better than we both thought, both lungs and liver, and we recapped our tracking job. Next we came up with a game plan to get the deer out, he was heavy so we didn’t want to have to drag him up the steep hill and we wanted to get him to the top of the hill before field dressing him if we could.

About the time we finished taking a couple pictures where he laid the rain started lightly falling. We hurried back and got the ATV to help drag him out and by the time we got back the rain had really started to come down. He was too heavy to lift on the back of the ATV so we tied a strap around his antlers and I was going to lift his front half as Tyson drove up, so that we wouldn’t ruin his hide for a mount. About a third of the way up the hill the heavy rain started turning the path to a muddy mess. Tyson buried his ATV to the axel, and I made a failed attempt to push him forward, only to get caked in mud being slung by the tires. I refused to admit defeat but I would admit we needed a different game plan, we had to field dress the deer right there, in the rain. We then had to unhook the deer, move Tyson up the hill about 30 yards and hook three additional straps together to get the deer moving up hill again.

Finally, an hour after we started the drag out we made it back to the truck, soaked and covered in mud. We drove back to Tyson’s, hung the deer up in his tree, changed close and cracked open a welcoming cold beverage. During the last hour I have never laughed so much at deer camp, at the failed attempts to move the deer up hill. Getting covered in mud, soaked to the bone, asking ourselves why someone would choose to hunt a spot like that with no easy access to get a deer out. It was absolutely the things deer camp stories are made of. Its something I’ll never forget, something I’ll probably never be able to repay Tyson for, and something that I can’t wait to tell the story of time and time again.

It’s something I’ve probably under sold here, but if you’ve ever been a part of deer camp, or had an experience like mine, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. The friendships that come from a stranger who hunts along side your property, the memories that come from dragging a deer out in a storm, and the stories that will get passed along beside a fire for years to come. If you haven’t had the chance to be a part of deer camp or its been too long since your last deer camp then I hope you get out there and get involved with some people who can bring you to theirs, because it offers things that most people will unfortunately never experience.

photo credit: Daniel Woody of danielwoodyphotography.com