Hunter: David Ditter
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Jasper
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
As I was sitting in my climbing stand, I looked to about 11 o'clock and saw a mature buck, about 70 yards away, walking towards the lake to my left. I immediately stood up and put my rifle to my shoulder and attempted to find the buck in my scope, which I did, and waited for him to stop walking. He stopped, with his head and shoulder exposed from behind a huge tree. I found his neck in the scope and fired. He reacted by continuing to run to my left and around the bottom end of the lake. His reaction was not convincing to me that I had found the mark. I heard a loud crash after he ran for few seconds, but wasn't convinced of having made a perfect shot. I remained in the stand for an hour. During that hour, I heard several rifle shots from the area that the buck would have traveled to, if I had missed. At the end of that hour, I saw another deer in front of me at about 70 yards, and I found it in the scope and fired and watched the deer run for about 30 yards and go belly up. Two deer limit, so I got down and secured the second deer, then went to find out what had happened with the first deer. I could only find two tiny spots of blood at the point of impact, but one spot looked gutty. I trailed the travel corridor, finding no sign of the deer. I searched for about half hour, but did not want to disturb other hunters at that time, since I did not find any further evidence of a kill. When I returned to the area after removing the other deer and butchering it, I went to thoroughly search for any evidence of a kill. After maneuvering around the feeder creek of the lake, I found the buck about 30 yards on the other side of the creek.
