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First Ohio Deer of the Year
See, kids...this is why you shouldn't use your cell phone in the treestand: you'll get one lousy picture!
Guilty as charged: I was using my cell phone to follow the Eagles/Vikings game in the time I was in my stand and didn't realize how fast I was draining my battery. I ended up with just enough to snap one awful, out of focus picture of the spike buck I killed last night before the phone died:
Anyway, this was another of those "against the odds", 75 degree/high wind days with the evening cooling off only to the mid 60's. In theory, I shouldn't have seen or heard much of anything. Over the years, I've learned that what constitutes allegedly poor deer hunting conditions is never a reason to stay out of the woods if you have the time to sit. Last night was no different.
I have had very little movement in the cut 20 acre bean field at the front part of the farm that I usually hunt. There were plenty of deer in there when the beans were still up and green mid-Summer. However, as soon as they yellowed, the action dropped, and once they were cut, the deer activity came to a screeching halt. The good news is that there is a small, open meadow in the back that is just secluded and enclosed enough that deer will come through it, even in high winds. I already had a stand set up back there and that's where I was on this particular evening. The 18-20 mph wind was going in an absolutely perfect direction, pulling my scent to the open side of the meadow where the deer are least likely to enter.
About an hour before the end of legal, I heard some mewing in the woods to my left, uphill about 90 - 100 yards away. Good sign. I then heard another mew from the same direction about 30 minutes later, but never saw any deer associated with the sound exposed. Time ticked by and it was looking like nothing was going to come in for a shot, but as usual, with just 4 minutes left in the legal shooting day, a deer broke through the upwind woods in front of me just inside of 20 yards. I looked hard in the waning light as the deer worked ever closer and saw no antlers. In the low light, this was looking like a really nice, big doe. When it was at about 15 yards, I drew and fired...and the deer made a pronounced *grunt* on impact! What?? It's a buck! When I got to the ground, I discovered that this was a very nice sized spike buck that thankfully fell short of the state requirement to report him as antlered. You only get one "antlered" deer per year here and it would suck to have burned that on a genetic aberration like this with short, fat spikes.
This was the first time I've hit a deer with a 125 gr. Rage Hypodermic broadhead. These suckers have a 2" cutting diameter, which is impressive on paper. With the deer facing me head on, I aimed to the side of the spine and behind the shoulder blades, but that ginormous blade actually caught the spine and dropped the buck where he stood. Not a bad thing. Unfortunately, I learned that the wide cutting diameter on these broadheads comes at the expense of a significant amount of penetration. I wasn't fully confident that the first arrow reached the vitals and opted to put two more arrows into the buck to hasten things. None of the three arrows I fired fully penetrated him. That's a stark contrast to the Slick Trick 125 gr. fixed blades (1+1/8" cutting diameter) that I've been shooting for a long time, which have almost always cut clean through and fully exited.
Make no mistake: the Rage broadheads leave a nice, long entry hole, but the wide, shallow-angled blades eat up a lot of kinetic energy on impact and stifle penetration. I always wondered why the guys who use these on the hunting shows always have the arrows sticking out of the deer they hit, even at close range. Now I know why. I am not a fan of this, especially when a deer drops and rolls like it did tonight, snapping one of my arrows and wasting meat since you have to cut out a significant amount of meat around a broken carbon arrow to avoid ingesting carbon fibers. I think next season, I'll be going back to my fixed blades.
At any rate, it was nice to get a deer down in Ohio and put a little more meat in the freezer before the rut kicks in here in a week and change. There were some giants running around this place last year, so hopefully that will be the case again this season.
Guilty as charged: I was using my cell phone to follow the Eagles/Vikings game in the time I was in my stand and didn't realize how fast I was draining my battery. I ended up with just enough to snap one awful, out of focus picture of the spike buck I killed last night before the phone died:
Anyway, this was another of those "against the odds", 75 degree/high wind days with the evening cooling off only to the mid 60's. In theory, I shouldn't have seen or heard much of anything. Over the years, I've learned that what constitutes allegedly poor deer hunting conditions is never a reason to stay out of the woods if you have the time to sit. Last night was no different.
I have had very little movement in the cut 20 acre bean field at the front part of the farm that I usually hunt. There were plenty of deer in there when the beans were still up and green mid-Summer. However, as soon as they yellowed, the action dropped, and once they were cut, the deer activity came to a screeching halt. The good news is that there is a small, open meadow in the back that is just secluded and enclosed enough that deer will come through it, even in high winds. I already had a stand set up back there and that's where I was on this particular evening. The 18-20 mph wind was going in an absolutely perfect direction, pulling my scent to the open side of the meadow where the deer are least likely to enter.
About an hour before the end of legal, I heard some mewing in the woods to my left, uphill about 90 - 100 yards away. Good sign. I then heard another mew from the same direction about 30 minutes later, but never saw any deer associated with the sound exposed. Time ticked by and it was looking like nothing was going to come in for a shot, but as usual, with just 4 minutes left in the legal shooting day, a deer broke through the upwind woods in front of me just inside of 20 yards. I looked hard in the waning light as the deer worked ever closer and saw no antlers. In the low light, this was looking like a really nice, big doe. When it was at about 15 yards, I drew and fired...and the deer made a pronounced *grunt* on impact! What?? It's a buck! When I got to the ground, I discovered that this was a very nice sized spike buck that thankfully fell short of the state requirement to report him as antlered. You only get one "antlered" deer per year here and it would suck to have burned that on a genetic aberration like this with short, fat spikes.
This was the first time I've hit a deer with a 125 gr. Rage Hypodermic broadhead. These suckers have a 2" cutting diameter, which is impressive on paper. With the deer facing me head on, I aimed to the side of the spine and behind the shoulder blades, but that ginormous blade actually caught the spine and dropped the buck where he stood. Not a bad thing. Unfortunately, I learned that the wide cutting diameter on these broadheads comes at the expense of a significant amount of penetration. I wasn't fully confident that the first arrow reached the vitals and opted to put two more arrows into the buck to hasten things. None of the three arrows I fired fully penetrated him. That's a stark contrast to the Slick Trick 125 gr. fixed blades (1+1/8" cutting diameter) that I've been shooting for a long time, which have almost always cut clean through and fully exited.
Make no mistake: the Rage broadheads leave a nice, long entry hole, but the wide, shallow-angled blades eat up a lot of kinetic energy on impact and stifle penetration. I always wondered why the guys who use these on the hunting shows always have the arrows sticking out of the deer they hit, even at close range. Now I know why. I am not a fan of this, especially when a deer drops and rolls like it did tonight, snapping one of my arrows and wasting meat since you have to cut out a significant amount of meat around a broken carbon arrow to avoid ingesting carbon fibers. I think next season, I'll be going back to my fixed blades.
At any rate, it was nice to get a deer down in Ohio and put a little more meat in the freezer before the rut kicks in here in a week and change. There were some giants running around this place last year, so hopefully that will be the case again this season.
Accuracy: because white space between bullet holes drives me insane.
Replies
Interesting about the Rage. I always wondered about that.
I'll stick with my Muzzy MX- 3s.
Yeah, I've got enough of these broadheads to last this season, but it's looking like I'll probably go right back to my comfort zone with the fixed blades next year. I want full penetration with a broadhead. Even if you make a marginal shot, there's something to be said for putting two holes in a deer that is a lot more comforting from a lethality standpoint, and when it comes time to track.
Sounds like your thoughts about the arrows are spot on.
Rushed pic = iPhone never focused. The iPhone 6 camera is pretty miserable in low light anyway, but rushing it in the dark is a formula for what you see above.
As for mechanicals, as a class, I saw some study cited that shows they actually have a 10% higher recovery rate than fixed blades. Take that for what it's worth, as it's just one study. The new designs are definitely better. With a rear-deploying blade design, Rage broadheads are effectively immune to the issues that the old, forward-deploying mechanicals had dealing with sharp impact angle shots deflecting off target. That said, I wish that they shaved a 1/4" off of each blade or offered a steeper deployment angle to gain more penetration. There's no way that a 62 lb. draw weight bow @ 275 fps shouldn't completely perforate a deer from a close shot like this. With my Slick Tricks, even a steep angle shot put through one lung would leave serious blood on the ground. There was one buck that I shot in Maryland through the top of his back on what looked like a perfect shot for the angle. Upon seeing the shot angle once the deer was down, it was as good of a shot as you could get from where I was relative to that deer. That said, he did fail to put blood on the ground for a long way on that steep shot, but he DID bleed a ton...internally. The problem? His liver plugged the exit hole!
This was with a compound bow: 2013 Hoyt Carbon Element G3. I do use a Parker Tornado F4 crossbow and try to take at least one deer per season with it. So far, I've owned it for 2 seasons and gotten one deer in each year. You'll love getting out with that Fang when the time comes. Crossbows offer a very different dynamic, as you can hit light cover that isn't conducive to vertical/recurve/compound bow hunting. I'll be taking mine out in a couple of weeks when I hunt eastern Ohio.
You are a hunter not a photographer, so you get a pass on the pic. Atleast there are no swirly spots on yours.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Oh, and don't lie to yourselves, boys: National Geographic would kill for photo quality like this!
Did you ever come up with a system to help you get deer in the pickup easier?
Dad 5-31-13
In 1892 they may have.
Dad 5-31-13
No, and in fact, I'm glad that you asked. This deer was the experimental volunteer for using my hanging block and tackle gambrel on the moveable track system in my truck to pull a deer into the bed. It didn't work out.
Unless you have someone down at the deer to help it over the lip of the tailgate or the bed (if you remove the gate), the deer's rump (being the heavier side of the deer) tends to want to roll toward the ground as you pull. The rump, and potentially the gambrel, will hang up and possibly damage the body if you get too frisky with it. So, the long and short of it is that without a ramp, this won't work for a solo hunter. I ended up having to ask the landowner to give me a hand raising the opposite side of the deer and just pulling it into the bed the old fashioned way: with elbow grease.
Next step is to bring some scrap plywood to use as a ramp and see how the gambrel setup does when you use an inclined plane to aid loading.
I loaded my biggest buck (~160) dressed solo. I used a cinch strap to hold his head and neck up above the tailgate so I could throw the rest him in the bed.
Dad 5-31-13
That's what I hate about those Damn Cell Phone Cams. They always run out of film at a bad time.......:jester:
BTW, Congrats, AND :yousuck:
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Seriously though, the iPhone 6 camera, to my eye, was a significant step backward from the iPhone 5. Even the daylight pictures look marginal compared to what I'm seeing from the competing generation of Samsung phones (Galaxy Note 7 debacle notwithstanding)
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Conversely, a fully penetrating setup can be had at much lower draw weight and is probably going to fare much better when the ribs on something like an elk or a moose start looking like the thickness of a whitetail shoulder blade.
Iffin you're too wimpy to throw a deer in the pickup bed one of these will get you there. And don't forget to let the tail gate down.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-adk-adk_sbnt&hsimp=yhs-adk_sbnt&hspart=adk&p=trailer+hitch+attached+boom+to+load+animals+in+the+pickup+bed#id=1&vid=b7f7c8e7bbb54bccc06ff13898f99bfd&action=click
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
:rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao:
Now if some of you didn't get the punch line I'm a gonna assume you're either a Sooner or an Aggie!
:roll2::roll2::roll2::roll2::roll2:
Sorry Jeff and Jerry Bob, I just never could resist an opportunity to tell a good Aggie Joke!!!
:tooth:
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
Oh, that deer went in the pickup just fine. I didn't even have to drag down the road for a mile looking for help.
Dad 5-31-13
Congrats! I am with you, after several less than stellar tries with mechanical broadheads I went back to a 3 blade fixed a few seasons ago and 7 deer later, have been very pleased with the results. I did have one issue with a full penetration, deflection, and hitting a deer behind it that I never could locate. (Got the full penetration deer but not the deflected arrow deer, I will take full penetration any day)
twa -
Agreed. Any issues I have had with fixed blade broadheads have been few and far between enough that I can't even recall one at this moment. They do require more intense concentration to form, as they are less forgiving than mechanicals, and require a well-tuned bow to match field point POI, but they penetrate like gangbusters and all-around get the job done.
As to wide broadheads, I used to use two blade 2.75" wide Vortex expandable broadheads. They cut a SERIOUS wound through a deer. But, they lack penetration. I never had an arrow make a complete pass through. Sometimes, it would stick out the off side. Sometimes not. But, they never ran far in general. Though, I did have one spike make it about 100 yards after the arrow cut the top of his heart off. You just never know.