So as I got down from my tree stand I was pretty confident I had shot the deer. When I was walking over to ware the buck was standing I noticed he was further away then I orignaly thought he was. So I decided to walk back to my stand and step off the distance to see how far of a shot it was to the closest blood. I stepped off around 110 yards and didn’t find any blood.


This seemed very odd so I started to look all over for blood. None here or there I was starting to get very frustrated. I thought for sure I hit him. I looked every where with in 30 yards of where the buck was standing not a drop of blood. “You have to be kidding me” I thought to myself as I was combing the ground.

I proceeded to follow the trail the buck had run on. Gawking at the ground leaning closer and closer the farther I walked into the woods. There was no blood on the trail the first time I walked the trail, or the second or the third. After about an hour and a half of looking for blood I finely decided it was time to give up. Needless to say I was incredibly bummed that I didn’t get this deer.

I decided to walk around for a short while and then head back up to my stand. I got into my stand and sat the rest of the morning. Around 8:30 or so I heard a shot rather close to my stand it I was guessing it was someone form my party. Then shortly after the shot I heard two guys walking through the woods and another shot rang out. By there conversation I could tell they didn’t get the deer.

The two hunters continued on and ended up about 30 yards from my stand. I always get a bit annoyed when people walk by my stand (I was hunting public land so what could I do). About thirty minutes after the two guys walked by I heard some crunching leaves behind me. I gazed in the woods behind me and couldn’t see a thing. Then just as I was turning my head to look awayI caught a glimpse of a good size doe. I only saw her for about a second (not even enough time to think about pulling my gun up).

Shortly after that I heard her rumble into the brush where the buck had come from earlier this morning. I heard her walking around for a good twenty minutes, but the brush was so thick I couldn’t get even the slightest peek at her.

I sat in my stand until around ten or ten thirty and headed for the parking lot to go and get some lunch. I met up with Pat on the way back. He hadn’t seen any a deer other than a nice buck crossed the road in front of him on his way to the parking lot earlier in the morning.

Pat and I were the first back to the parking lot. We chatted for a short while, then Rob, Aaron, and Brian all showed up. Bruce followed shortly after. There is one question we are sure to ask each other as we come out of the woods. Did you see any deer? Well so far every one had seen a deer or two, but no one had shot one. Strangely this was starting out to be an unproductive deer hunting season.

The only two guys left out in the woods were Ryan and Brandon. Someone said here they come and I looked up to see them walking down the trail toward the parking lot around 11:00. A moment later BOOM a shot rang out. I looked down the trail to see what they were shooting. I didn’t see any deer so I started talking again. I happened to glance back at the trail once again to see if Ryan or Brandon were coming or if we needed to go help them get a deer. I happened to look at the perfect moment to see a deer run across the trail. I quickly grabbed my shot gun and ran into the woods, off to the west of the parking lot where the deer ran.

I was startled to see a giant buck just walking through the forest. I reached in my pocket, grabbed a shell, and loaded it in my gun. I quickly brought the gun up to my shoulder. All of this happened so fluently I was didn't even have time to get excited to see this buck in my scope. I took my time and aimed at the giant buck. Slowly squeezed the trigger and with a loud bark my 870 chucked a slug in the direction of this giant.

Did I hit the monster buck or will this be a long drawn out season of misses? Find out in part 3 of A Not so productive deer season.



~Ben G.

Link to other parts of the series
Not so Productive Deer hunting Season (Part 3)
Not so productive Deer hunting Season (Part 1)
Other huting adventures
Trout fishing Part 1
Turkey Hunting Addiction (Part 1)