Hunter: Ben Baty
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Franklin
Season: 2020-2021
Hunt Story
Got home from work and headed to the woods. My neighbor lets me hunt his place. Heard turkeys as I was headed into the ladder stand. About 15 minutes goes by and I see 2 does about 150 yards away starting to feed toward me. I ranged an ant pile to establish a shot range. As the does start walking I hear footsteps behind me. He walks in to my left at 20 yards. I center the 20-yard crosshairs just behind his shoulder and squeeze the trigger. He spins to the left upon hearing the crossbow and the arrow goes in on his right side in front of his back leg and exits right behind his left shoulder. I thought I had hit him perfect. I waited about 15 minutes and got down to check for blood on the arrow. I found good red blood. I went home to get my daughter and 4-wheeler and tractor for recovery. We looked behind the stand and toward the creek for blood and never found a drop. There was a 2nd buck that came out that I think went the way we were looking. Turns out my buck went further away from me than I expected. He made it about 100 yards before dying. I was almost ready to quit looking for the night when I walked up on him. My daughter drove him out on the back of my 4-wheeler. She said she was praying that it didn't flip over on her. Lol. We got to Dormineys processing at 10 p.m. after taking several pics and getting him out. Mr Dorminey said he would be over 180 pounds. I had pictures of him on my first cellular trail camera and he was at the top of my hit list.
