Last night and today has been an emotional roller coaster ending with divine intervention…

After shooting a good buck yesterday morning, I took my wife to another area that I had scouted last weekend and found some more oaks dropping with some old scrapes around the edges.  Rather than take the kayaks in, we opted for an easier walk in that was only one mile. 

I messed up on getting her set up with the crossbow, and didn’t realize it until 45 minutes in that she couldn’t cover the entire area.  I told her we needed to swap places and started to move.  I had just leaned forward when she started tapping my leg.  I looked up to see a nice buck staring us down at 30 yards.  I had totally thought they would come off the ridge to our left from a bedding area.  Instead, he popped up out of a ditch and came in head on.  

I whispered for her to get on him, but he already had us pegged.  As she was trying to ease the crossbow into place, he bolted.  I grabbed my rifle and hollered “mack”.  He paused at about 60 yards for a split second and I fired.  He bailed out with his tail down and I thought everything was gonna be fine. 

We stayed put to let her continue her hunt as it was still fairly early.  Right at an hour later, it started to thunder, so I slipped out to trail him.  After going almost 100 yards with no blood, I began to get worried.  I continued to trail him for 622 yards when the blood trail quit.  Based on the blood, I figured liver, and knew he would die if I backed out.  Besides, I figured to come back this morning with my dog to track him.  

As we started the long walk out it began to rain.  😬. By the time we got back to the house it was raining pretty good and I was pretty worried.   Needless to say, it was a long night.  

I picked up my best friend and his daughter this morning at 6am to go back and see what we could find. I retraced the track from last night based on the trace from #huntstand but there was absolutely no blood.   When we got to the point where I marked the last blood, we split up and looked for sign.  My buddy continued following the trail he was on while I let the dog work with no luck.  Ultimately, I met back up with my buddy to discuss.  I was pretty dejected, and suggested we call it off.  He saw another opening about 100 yards away, and he said we should at least go that much further and then call it.  

We didn’t go 20 feet from that point when my buddy saw him in a drain to our left!!   To think we almost gave up within 50 feet of the prize.  After a short and emotional celebration, we began the work of getting him out.  

Needless to say, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for on this thanksgiving.   

#THP #publicland #bestfriend #thankful

Divine Intervention: A Thanksgiving Story

Michael B

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Brian L

AJ C