Hunter’s Journal – December 2016

By Vinny Himes

I hadn’t picked up a bow in 12 years due to a compound fracture of my left shoulder blade and a fractured and severely dislocated right shoulder. My buddy Jordan McGee came by the house in July for a cookout and had his bow in the truck. We got to messing around, and I asked if I could shoot his bow. Little did I know, this was a big mistake. I was instantly addicted all over again.

I sold my spare truck to get the funds for a new bow setup and stopped by the Ace Hardware in Social Circle with a big wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket. I shot every bow they had on the wall until I found the one that tickled my fancy. I spared no expense on the sight, release, arrows, etc.

I went home and practiced every single night. Jordan and I would skip lunch and shoot during our lunch breaks. We shot at work in the parking lot most evenings until I started to get more consistent. 

I couldn’t even sleep the night before opening day. I had cameras out and food plots planted weeks in advance. We had some big deer on camera, but we didn’t get any rain. Our food plots had sprouted, but like most of Georgia this year, they just weren’t coming in thick. 

I was excited when I got in the truck at 4 a.m. opening day of bow season, but I wasn’t super optimistic.

The deer were feeding heavy at night with very little daytime activity. I took my 8-year-old daughter with me that morning. My boss brought his 7-year-old, mainly so they could see some deer. My boss and I have been hunting buddies since the first year I came to work for him. Hunting is one of many activities we are both passionate about.

As soon as the sun came up, we had action. We saw a number of does, and several bucks came by, including a real nice 10, but he needed to live a few more years.

Around 10 a.m., a 9-point walked out. He was perfect on the left side, shaping up to be a pretty 10, but the right side didn’t match. 

The kids were getting fidgety, and it was getting pretty hot around 11:30. We decided to exit the stand and go get some lunch.

We dropped the kids off at the house and headed back out for an afternoon/evening hunt. It was only a few minutes after we got back into the stand that the deer started flooding our struggling food plot. They were nipping off every sprout they could find. 

At dusk, there were a number of deer in the food plot, but none of them were worth shooting. Then that 9-point came walking out of the trees at 35 yards and started pushing does and younger bucks around, acting very dominant for that time of year. My boss told me to feed him an arrow. He was a good-sized buck for my first deer with a bow.

I nocked an arrow and was very calm. I really thought about letting this buck go for another year, but we had never seen him on camera, and he was jumping the fence from a neighboring piece of land. I figured if I didn’t get him, someone else would anyway. He was off to the right of our big tower stand, so it was a very awkward shot. Every time I would get my shot lined up, he would take another step. I was at full draw for more than 40 seconds.

Finally, I let the arrow down, and my boss asked why I didn’t shoot him. I explained the poor shot conditions. Well I’ll be darned if the buck didn’t turn right around, take three steps and present the perfect shot. 

My boss whispered, “Shoot him.”

I drew back, steadied myself and got the worst case of the hunting shakes I have ever had. It took me a while to calm myself down. It had just gotten real. I was going to shoot this deer. I took a deep breath in, let it out slowly, thought about everything Jordan had taught me over the last four weeks. I barely touched the trigger on my release.

The Lumenok lit up green, and it seemed like the arrow was moving in slow motion. I thought I saw the light flicker, but the shot looked really low. I wasn’t even upset or depressed. I was again convinced this buck was meant to live another year or two. My boss was looking through binoculars and said the shot was low.

The other deer in the plot scattered as the arrow smacked into the ground. None of them went far, about 20 yards, and they all stopped and went back to eating. However, my buck ran down the shooting lane he was standing in and darted into the woods to the right and back toward the property he had come off of earlier.

As we gathered our gear, I told my buddy I was going to go get my arrow and just check to ensure there was no blood. I climbed down, set everything by the ladder and walked out to retrieve my arrow with my flashlight. As I walked up, I noticed all the fletchings were red, and one of them should have been white. The shaking started again. I looked back toward the stand and said, “Man, I think I smoked him!”

My boss replied, “No way, I saw it. It was low.” He walked over to inspect the bloody arrow in my hand. We high-fived, and he got shaky. We knew exactly where the buck had run, but there wasn’t one drop of blood anywhere. As we got closer to the point he had darted into the trees, we started worrying. 

As I stared at the ground, I kept replaying the shot over and over in my head. Everything looked good, and the release felt so right. The only problem I could think of is that I had totally guessed at the yardage. I had forgot the range finder on the kitchen counter, but I had previously shot land marks from the stand. I had a pretty good idea where 25, 30, 35, 40 all the way out to 60 yards was from the stand.

I was standing in the exact spot the buck went into the woods when I looked up, and all I saw was a bright, white belly and blood everywhere. His lungs had pushed through the entrance and exit wounds. I couldn’t believe it. My first deer with a bow, and he didn’t make it 60 yards from where I shot him on opening day.

I am excited about the rest of the season and am looking forward to some cooler weather. Good luck to you all, and be safe out there!