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(VERY) Late season crossbow hunt success (...in the name of history)
I got taken as an alternate for the base's controlled archery deer hunt. It's designed to cull the overly populous deer herd that ravages one of the base golf courses. Normally, a draw is required to get this opportunity for just one week, but one of the guys who got drawn hurt his back and couldn't hunt. He gave up his slot and I filled it. You are required to shoot one antlerless deer first and then can shoot a buck.
The cool, historically significant part? This particular spot isn't on the golf course itself, rather it's on the adjacent, based-owned portion of the Huffman Prairie: the place where the Wright Brothers performed over 150 flights to test and perfect the world's first practical airplane.
Wikipedia has a good description of the shared boundary area I was on tonight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_Prairie
So yeah, this is where I was hunting:
A little background: Ohio's archery season starts in late September and ends in just over 2 weeks on February 1st.
It has been a TOUGH year hunting here during this, my first season out this way. It's been difficult on base and even tougher on the state-owned public lands. To put it in perspective, I killed a mule deer, an antelope and a whitetail deer in 3 other states this year in just 5 hunting days *total*. I have been trying since the season opener here to get a deer and am just now finally punching a tag. To be fair, I let quite a few deer walk in the early season and had one I shot and never recovered due to a rain storm rolling in shortly after the hit, but it's still been inordinately hard to get it done.
Because the base is deemed private land by the Ohio game laws, baiting is allowed. Though I saw deer every single time I came out on this controlled hunt, what is now very tall grass in need of a burn made for no clear shot opportunities. I had never hunted over bait before, but promised myself long ago that I would do whatever was legal to take a deer if I got into the final weeks of the season with no luck. Starting on Monday, I started laying ~70 yard long string of apple slices along the 15-yard wide mowed section of an otherwise high-grass maze of tall grass and deer beds. I honestly felt a little bit guilty doing this, but crunch time was upon me and it was now or never. Ironically enough, the deer cleaned up all of the apples I laid over the prior two nights, but not while I was out there.
Tonight, I sat on the ground, right on the edge of the mowed path with nothing but camo on and my crossbow in hand. I decided to hang up the vertical bow for this spot because it's just too exposed to draw and I really wanted to finally punch a tag with my crossbow. Well before sunset, I heard a deer walking behind me pretty close. I slowly turned my head and saw it inside of 20 yards behind me. The way it was walking was sure to put it in my scent line, but these deer smell people fairly regularly due to their proximity to this national park area and I prayed that it wouldn't spook. When it got into my scent line, I never heard it flee. Instead, about 20 minutes later, it appeared about 50 yards away on the clearcut edge, but on the same side of the grass line that I was sitting in. This would make for a tough shot if it didn't get in the center of the clearcut due to the brush on my left negating a clear shooting lane. Worse, it was headed directly for me. At this point, I had just enough cover to hastily get the crossbow up without being seen.
Thankfully, the deer noticed my outline just outside of 20 yards. This made it a little tense; tail flicking and nose licking ensued, but it also did what I needed and slowly moved away from the grassline. I only had a rough idea of the range (somewhere between the 20 -30 yard spots I pre-ranged) since I couldn't take another laser reading at this point. I held just a little high with my 20 yard scope bubble. It was quartering toward me when the bolt released and I heard a nice, solid thump on impact. Into the tall grass it went and I sat for about 20 minutes before starting to look for sign. I found the bolt in the ground about 8 yards past the impact point and it was totally covered in good, bright blood and hair. Below is a pic of where it was found, turned on its point for perspective of clearcut edge grass I was hiding in:
The blood trail started out great - clear as day on a small patch of snow and growing larger into the grass - but went south quickly. After about 60 yards, I was down to sparse pin drops and I couldn't find anymore. Now it was completely dark. Instead of trampling the evidence and making things worse, I called an officemate from work and he came out to help. I found a few more drops when we went back into the grass and we leapfrogged as he and I found more, marking with flagging tape along the way. After about an hour of this and occasional splashes of more blood, our work was rewarded. The deer, a buttonbuck by chance, was down about 120 yards from the initial hit.
The penetration from the crossbow bolt, tipped with a 125 gr. Slick Trick Magnum broadhead, was amazing. I hit the deer quartering behind it's right shoulder and it exited with complete pass-through just in front of the left ham. That's well over 24" of deer! The entrance hole was spectacular. It's hard to believe so little blood was on the ground for so much of the trail.
It's been a long, difficult road to this deer, but I'm glad it's down: it was my very first crossbow kill, I did it on a very historical site, and I checked the box for (technically) taking an antlerless deer. I have 2 more days left in my controlled hunting week to try and get a genuine, antlered buck or another antlerless deer. Even if that doesn't happen, at least my first deer season here isn't the total bust it was shaping up to be.
The cool, historically significant part? This particular spot isn't on the golf course itself, rather it's on the adjacent, based-owned portion of the Huffman Prairie: the place where the Wright Brothers performed over 150 flights to test and perfect the world's first practical airplane.
Wikipedia has a good description of the shared boundary area I was on tonight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_Prairie
The National Park Service currently operates this historic site where visitors may see the place where the Wrights developed the world’s first practical airplane as well as replicas of their 1905 hangar and launching catapult. While the historic flying field is mowed short, simulating the grazed pasture used by the Wrights and allowing its use for re-enactment flights, an adjacent area of tall-grass prairie is maintained unmowed, managed instead using late-season controlled burns.[3] A nature trail winds among the prairie's tall grasses, diverse wildflowers, and occasional shrubs.[4] The Huffman Prairie area is located within the Air Force Base, with a separate entrance and fencing between it and an adjacent runway and other modern base facilities.
So yeah, this is where I was hunting:
A little background: Ohio's archery season starts in late September and ends in just over 2 weeks on February 1st.
It has been a TOUGH year hunting here during this, my first season out this way. It's been difficult on base and even tougher on the state-owned public lands. To put it in perspective, I killed a mule deer, an antelope and a whitetail deer in 3 other states this year in just 5 hunting days *total*. I have been trying since the season opener here to get a deer and am just now finally punching a tag. To be fair, I let quite a few deer walk in the early season and had one I shot and never recovered due to a rain storm rolling in shortly after the hit, but it's still been inordinately hard to get it done.
Because the base is deemed private land by the Ohio game laws, baiting is allowed. Though I saw deer every single time I came out on this controlled hunt, what is now very tall grass in need of a burn made for no clear shot opportunities. I had never hunted over bait before, but promised myself long ago that I would do whatever was legal to take a deer if I got into the final weeks of the season with no luck. Starting on Monday, I started laying ~70 yard long string of apple slices along the 15-yard wide mowed section of an otherwise high-grass maze of tall grass and deer beds. I honestly felt a little bit guilty doing this, but crunch time was upon me and it was now or never. Ironically enough, the deer cleaned up all of the apples I laid over the prior two nights, but not while I was out there.
Tonight, I sat on the ground, right on the edge of the mowed path with nothing but camo on and my crossbow in hand. I decided to hang up the vertical bow for this spot because it's just too exposed to draw and I really wanted to finally punch a tag with my crossbow. Well before sunset, I heard a deer walking behind me pretty close. I slowly turned my head and saw it inside of 20 yards behind me. The way it was walking was sure to put it in my scent line, but these deer smell people fairly regularly due to their proximity to this national park area and I prayed that it wouldn't spook. When it got into my scent line, I never heard it flee. Instead, about 20 minutes later, it appeared about 50 yards away on the clearcut edge, but on the same side of the grass line that I was sitting in. This would make for a tough shot if it didn't get in the center of the clearcut due to the brush on my left negating a clear shooting lane. Worse, it was headed directly for me. At this point, I had just enough cover to hastily get the crossbow up without being seen.
Thankfully, the deer noticed my outline just outside of 20 yards. This made it a little tense; tail flicking and nose licking ensued, but it also did what I needed and slowly moved away from the grassline. I only had a rough idea of the range (somewhere between the 20 -30 yard spots I pre-ranged) since I couldn't take another laser reading at this point. I held just a little high with my 20 yard scope bubble. It was quartering toward me when the bolt released and I heard a nice, solid thump on impact. Into the tall grass it went and I sat for about 20 minutes before starting to look for sign. I found the bolt in the ground about 8 yards past the impact point and it was totally covered in good, bright blood and hair. Below is a pic of where it was found, turned on its point for perspective of clearcut edge grass I was hiding in:
The blood trail started out great - clear as day on a small patch of snow and growing larger into the grass - but went south quickly. After about 60 yards, I was down to sparse pin drops and I couldn't find anymore. Now it was completely dark. Instead of trampling the evidence and making things worse, I called an officemate from work and he came out to help. I found a few more drops when we went back into the grass and we leapfrogged as he and I found more, marking with flagging tape along the way. After about an hour of this and occasional splashes of more blood, our work was rewarded. The deer, a buttonbuck by chance, was down about 120 yards from the initial hit.
The penetration from the crossbow bolt, tipped with a 125 gr. Slick Trick Magnum broadhead, was amazing. I hit the deer quartering behind it's right shoulder and it exited with complete pass-through just in front of the left ham. That's well over 24" of deer! The entrance hole was spectacular. It's hard to believe so little blood was on the ground for so much of the trail.
It's been a long, difficult road to this deer, but I'm glad it's down: it was my very first crossbow kill, I did it on a very historical site, and I checked the box for (technically) taking an antlerless deer. I have 2 more days left in my controlled hunting week to try and get a genuine, antlered buck or another antlerless deer. Even if that doesn't happen, at least my first deer season here isn't the total bust it was shaping up to be.
Accuracy: because white space between bullet holes drives me insane.
Replies
That's a serious hole. Was it a mechanical?
I was definitely impressed by the size of that hole and equally distressed over the fact that somehow, this deer decided not to bleed much out of it. I don't know how it's possible.
The Slick Trick Magnum is actually a very small profile fixed blade broadhead - short, stubby 1-1/8" blades. Somehow, some way, it leaves a much larger diameter hole than its cutting surface suggests it should. It's the same exact broadhead I use with my vertical bow and is designed to give the reliability of a fixed blade design without the planning/skewing problems you get with larger profile broadheads. This lets you shoot it accurately out of a fast vertical bow or 165+ lb. draw crossbow like my Parker Tornado F4 without accuracy problems. On the crossbow, this puppy clocks at (chrony measured) 340 fps and still groups very well out to 60 yards.
The more I use it, the less I desire to change out to a mechanical like I used to on a higher draw weight bow.
Lack of blood trail. . .Forum-wise, we've collectively seen a few of these where a good blood trail peters out. I've got two theories on this:
1. You start out with a full "water balloon". Poke a hole in it and you've got pressure pushing fluid out, but you soon get to the point where there's not much pressure, and the critter stops "bleeding out" but continues "bleeding in".
2. Bullets and arrows enter and exit through muscle tissue, which might try to clamp down on blood flow through swelling/bruising. No such mechanism in the innards, and we're back to "bleeding in".
I'm very surprised he got that far - that's a HARD hit deer!
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
First deer in a new area, taken at a historical location, is just awesome
Jerry
The base wildlife manager got back to me after I email-reported the kill to him last night. He said that since this is the first year that they have offered this area for the controled hunt and the prior week's guys were unsuccessful, I am the first person ever to shoot a deer out there! They're having my bust made as I type this :tooth:
She showed me some great pics of those deer back there when I was at her house. She has quite a brave little bunch moving around back there!
I absolutely believe in your first theory on this. Unless the hole is low enough or a true heart shot, you always seem to get that initial surge of blood with arrows and it often slows significantly in short order. Then, when you open the deer up, the internal blood pool is amazing.
"Deer are different."
Thats it.
The Muzzys are another great option and arguably a better value at about $5 less per 3-pack. The thing I really like about he Slick Tricks is that the ferulle design is simple and tough, and blade replacement is extremely fast. The 4 cutting edges are actually just two razor flats - one locked through the other in the ferulle - held in place by the ring collar when the head is screwed in. The big trade-off with the Slick Trick ferulle is that if the tip does get bent, the entire thing is toast. That has yet to happen on game for me, but it could.
No, no, no - see, that idea doesn't allow me to don my tinfoil hat.
Sorry, the enable breaker was popped. I did a reset. You need a new bow.
Noted and I will start shopping immediately, much to the chagrin of the Mrs. Come to think of it, every time I shoot a deer, I should probably just trade for a new bow. It's good luck!
I use Slick Trick's on my arrows. I shot two hogs during deer season with my compound bow using these broadheads. They went completely thru both hogs. I like em!!!!
As for the hunting conditions in Ohio, I have to say that I'm pretty flabbergasted. I saw what I thought were very good deer numbers during the pre-season. However, talking with many of the locals, they are saying that numbers are down. Regardless, I didn't think it would take this long to kill a deer, especially one that I honestly would've let pass in the early season to go for a bigger doe. I know how it works once most gun seasons kick in, but I was not at all prepared for how incredibly busy the archery opener and early season were. It was even more of an ugly wake up call to see how sustained the pressure was throughout the squirrel/rabbit/other small game seasons.
Any deer on the new home place? Food Plot if you have any deer.
AKA: Former Founding Member
Life member of the American Legion, the VFW, the NRA and the Masonic Lodge, retired LEO