October 25, 2005
Sylvan
Springs, Alabama
This was one of my most memorable hunts. I hunted from the ground, which is my favorite style because its the most engaging. I was dressed in full camo (except for my orange hat that I wore to get to my stand). I crouched down beside an early season green field and waited for the action to start. Admittingly, I had dozed off in the afternoon sun when a familiar leaf crunch caught my attention. It takes years spent in the woods to understand the difference between how birds sound fluttering in the leaves, the intermittent sound of a squirrel splashing in the leaves as he moves tree-to-tree and the sound of a deer trot. Deer typically make a the splashing sound of a squirrel but it's usually at a constant pace. Before I could determine whether the leaves were squirrels playing near me, I saw this small buck standing 20 yards in front on me having his afternoon dinner. I slowly moved to a crouched position and left an arrow fly. Then nothing happened. The deer didn't move and I saw the fletching sticking out of the ground beneath his belly. The deer was so close that my closest pin wasn't close enough. I knocked another arrow and this time I looked down the shaft of the arrow and thought to myself that this had better work. I let the second arrow fly and heard a hard thump right after. The deer bolted into the woods and almost jumped over me in his pursuit to leave the area. I trailed him for about a hundred yards before I found my first bow hunting trophy. This isn't the biggest deer that I had killed but it's so rewarding to have a successful hunt with a primitive weapon like a bow.
