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It’s been a tough year here in southern California, I have not seen a lot of bucks, the ones I have seen are on the thin side.
The good news is, you get to keep looking until you find them. Finding bucks is not the hard part….. finding BIG BUCKS is the hard part. Earlier this season I found a bruiser 4×2, he’s about 22-23 wide, with deep forks and decent mass, I wrote in my hunting journal ” DO NOT KILL THIS BUCK ‘ he is a 4×2, so he will only score as a forky, I’m hoping next year he will go 4×4 then he would be a stroker buck.
After not seeing any big bucks, I thought about going to the 4×2 area and killing him, then I could not find him….. I’m glad though, he is a old worrier, if I find him next year & he is the same I might try & kill him, I think he would go around a 110″-115″ as a fork.
The difference between this year & last year is huge, I was seeing so many bucks I actually got to greedy trying to shoot a bigger buck then my first one. This year, very few bucks and not any big ones yet…..
Big bucks are like gold, they are where you find them…. just like gold, their are some characteristics that will put you in the right terrain.
Big bucks like to live a secret life, they don’t like the daylight, they don’t like to be bumped, they don’t like other deer, except in the rutt they forget most of that. sometimes they will have a sidekick to help with detection of things. Big bucks like steep, rough and thick terrain.
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My son & I went to one of these spots, set up a few game cameras over water and some trails, a few bucks used the trail, but only does would drink.
Put up a stand and kept watching it until a nice 3×3 came there, I told Caleb to hunt it the next day he had off, he text me he has a 4×3 & 3×3 coming to him. A little later he text me, he shot the 4×3 slight quartering at him. I tell him do not go after it, let the arrow kill him, I will get there just before dark to help him look.
It had only been about 3 1/2 hours which is not enough time to kill a buck gut shot, I thought lets just look close by to see how good the sign is, if he is not right there back out & come back the next day, caleb points me to the trail he took out, we cant find anything, just some tracks, that’s it.
I ask him to tell me about the shot & where he thinks he hit him and he cant explain what he saw, he tells me the arrow was not farther back than mid body, and the arrow was hanging down as he ran with the fletching sticking straight up, but he is not sure about anything he saw.
We look for blood but can not find one drop, I tell him lets back out, I tell him one of two things happened, the shot is not what you think it was, or we are on the wrong trail. I tell him I don’t think you hit him good as he was sure we where on the right trail. I tell him, get in the stand before light to see if anything comes in, then go look for him.
At around 7:30 I get a text your not going to believe this he’s coming in, I can see the hit, it went in & out he’s not hurt at all, I text back, broadside or quartering away shot only.
Then a few minutes later I get a call, “smoked him” I can see blood from my tree, I tell him I’m on my way.
As we follow a blind mans blood trail, he only went about 50 yards. As we are standing over him I can see the relief all over his face, he tells me he could not sleep last night, kept running what had happened through his head.
His first shot hit on the opposite side he shot at….. the buck jumped the string and ducked the arrow, it went just under the skin at the top of his right shoulder exiting about 4-5 ” below that, hitting the ground and keeping the arrow in him, as he ran Caleb saw it, but could not believe his eyes as he shot him on his left side.
My son was shooting a set of hot carbon foam ILF limbs on a 14″ riser pulling just over 60lbs with a tuffhead meathead on the front, it jumped through him like he was invisible slamming into the ground snapping the arrow as he ran, the tuffhead might be sticking out somewhere in china….
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Thanks DWCphoto.
Preston, the main thing my son Caleb could not tell me, was what had happened, so, I assumed the worst, which is a gut shot.
It takes about 6-7 hours, sometime longer, all depends on what was hit, however, after about 5-6hr they are very sick and don’t want to move, which is what happened on my buck this year.
No one wants a bad hit, however, if the deer is hit, you need to kill it, if you go after it to soon you stand the risk of bumping it and never seeing it again, they die a 100% of the time from a gut shot, their is no recovering from that hit, but you must use wisdom.
My son’s buck was hit, but just a superficial wound that he would of 100% recovered from, no worse for ware.
So much so, that he came by the same stand the very next day.
As you can see, it was just under the hide, very little muscle was cut.
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