Hunter: Mark Schwindler
Points: 9 (5L, 4R)
County: Gwinnett
Season: 2017-2018
Hunt Story
It started Saturday, October 21st. My friend and I were hunting. I was on the ground under a little tree, and he was in a ladder stand 30 yards away. About 8:10 AM I noticed movement about 50 yards just off to the right of me. I turned to my right, picked up my crossbow, and it was a buck heading towards me. There was a big pine tree about 20 yards in front of me. The buck started to play peek a boo from behind the pine tree. He did this for 10 - 15 minutes, and then he started to move to his right. It was too thick and not a good shot from where I was sitting, so I let him walk until he was showing his left side to me about 30 yards away between two oak trees. I had him with the sweet spot in my scope, I squeezed my trigger but I missed, and he ran. I hit a small sapling and my bolt deflected. I re-cocked my crossbow and slid another bolt in and waited. About 5 minutes later he was walking up a path directly in front of me, at 35 yards he stopped and then started towards me and stopped again. The sun was coming up behind me , just then the lower corner of my glasses shined from the sun and he took off. I decided to go out on Monday morning October 30th by myself since it would be cold. It was nice and cold, and about 7:20 AM I heard a tree branch shaking like a squirrel had jumped from limb to limb. I looked straight in front of me and I saw the buck about 40 yards away. I knew it was not legal to shoot yet, so I pulled up my crossbow and waited. Sitting there holding my crossbow it felt like an hour, but it was only a few minutes and the buck kept walking directly towards me. He got to about 25 yards and I squeezed the trigger at 7:38 AM. The buck jumped and ran down the hill, I heard him crash and I knew I got him. I sat there and drank a cup of coffee from my thermos. About 45 minutes later I went to look for my bolt, could not find my bolt, and I also could not see any blood on the ground or on any limbs. I started to question my shot, did I miss again, certainly not at 25 yards, so I walked the path I saw him run down. Still no blood anywhere, so I walked in small circles back and forth until I saw a white belly under a tree next to a down log about 60 yards from where I was sitting. Finally I harvested my first deer of the season.
