Hunter: Trey Lord
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Screven
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
I decided to hunt a stand on the edge of an old cypress swamp clearcut on Saturday December the 5th. I had only safety checked the stand the previous weekend, but it had not been hunted since the 2014 deer season. I settled into the stand 30 minutes before daylight and planned to sit until midday. Shortly after daylight, I began to see 8 to 10 ducks swimming in the half-flooded clearcut in front of me. They slowly swam to my left as the morning progressed. About 8:30, I heard some more splashing to my left where the ducks had been splashing around earlier. Something made me turn to look that way, and much to my surprise there was a mature buck coming out of the water and up onto the dry land that I was situated on. As soon as the buck hit dry land, I knew he was a shooter buck even from 70 to 80 yards away. I instantly began to grab my bow since he was coming straight down the trail 20 yards in front of me. I noticed my wind indicator was blowing straight toward the trail he was headed down, so I turned to face another opening a little closer to where he was. I didn't have time to read adjust my moveable sight to the new 28-yard shot distance, but I went ahead and drew back and prepared for the shot. As soon as the buck hit my shot opening, I settled in and squeezed the shot off. Much to my surprise, my shot was low and went right under him! The buck bolted and ran straight out in front of me and stopped 40 yards broadside! Fortunately I had my quiver screwed to the tree so I was able to grab another arrow one handed and get it nocked while he was trying to figure out what happened. When he turned, I drew back on him and squeezed the shot off. I heard the "Thwack" of hitting his rib cage, but still doubted my shot after missing the first shot. The buck tore out back into the flooded clearcut splashing and breaking limbs. After a few seconds I heard a loud crash of limbs and a splash, and then it all just stopped! I felt as if he was down for the count, but I sat tight for a bit. After 30 minutes, I went to the shot site and found bright red lung blood with bubbles. I backed out quietly and went back to the truck. The first call was to my wife to tell her about my encounter. The second was to my father-in-law Scott. I told him of the whole encounter, and he told me to sit tight, he was headed that way but would take him two hours to get there. When he arrived, I showed him the shot site. The blood led to a 3-foot deep 15-yard wide flooded ditch. After wading across the ditch, we were able to find blood on the few patches of dry land. After a few minutes trailing blood drops, the flood gates unleashed and he started pouring blood. We knew we were close. After another couple of minutes we found him piled up on a tiny patch of dry land in an old flooded clearcut. After a little dragging and as much floating across flooded areas, we got the deer back to dry land and finally got to celebrate. The only thing missing was my partner in crime, my loving wife!
