Hunter: Ivan Rodriguez
Points: 13 (6L, 7R)
County: Talbot
Season: 2016-2017
Hunt Story
I called this deer Splitzer due to the G2 split and G2 sticker. He reminded me a lot of the very first deer I ever saw in the woods as a young hunter, a dark-racked non-typical similar to one my uncle had over his mantle; that day turned me into a trophy hunter despite my young age of 13, I simply couldn’t reason shooting a small deer when there are such big deer in the woods. I had plenty of trail cam footage of Splitzer moving in daylight and pinned him down to his principle scrape he was checking most often. Funny thing is I was hunting him right by a road where most people wouldn’t think to hunt, but problem was people often parked there and when they did, trail camera footage told me the bucks wouldn’t show up. So I asked folks to not park there the days I was hunting and it worked. Unfortunately, though I have been videoing my hunts and got my last big 8-pointer on video, this particular morning, in the middle of a freaking drought, it decides to deliver heavy fog and light rain right before my buck shows up, so I pulled my camera off my crossbow and put it in my pocket to protect it and not five minutes later he shows up. All I saw was a leg first, through really thick stuff; I was in a pine thicket with very few and small shooting lanes. But then I caught a piece of his unmistakable chocolate rack and knew instantly it was him and readied my shot. He gave me a perfect broadside 25 yard shot, and I released with a good view of the Luminock, which appeared to hit his shoulder with a very loud impact as though it struck bone. But shooting 350 fps with the Dead Ringer 1 ½” two blade, I wasn’t worried; at least not at that moment. That’s when the nightmare began! I normally sit for a while before checking the shot, but I got down pretty quick due to the excitement of shooting the biggest deer of my life. When I got the place where I shot him, there was no blood whatsoever! I also didn’t see my arrow, but wasn’t surprised because I had assumed it buried in his opposite shoulder. So I started walking carefully in the direction he was heading, looking for blood or my arrow. There was a road only a 15 yards ahead that he always crosses, so I walked that whole road both ways for a couple hundred yards trying to see where he crossed and look for blood, but found nothing. Went back to the spot I shot to look harder and actually found my arrow, it had been a full pass-through, to my surprise. The blood looked good, just like the blood on the 8-point I had killed several weeks earlier, so that brought me some relief, for the moment at least. The last deer had only gone 75 yards, and all the other deer I had killed with bow had never gone more than a 150 yards, so I started to do a grid pattern about 20 yards or so from impact, leaving my arrow stuck in the ground where I had shot him at. Well, this began about 8:30 in the morning and several hours later with God knows how much walking, I still hadn’t found a single drop of blood or my deer, and I was in full panic mode! My number one hit list buck, and biggest deer of my life, seemed to be slipping away from me. I asked God several times if I was going to find this deer, and all I could hear in my head was, “he’s close,” and yet I saw nothing. But I still had hope, because a fellow in camp had a tracking dog with him. So I went to camp and waited for him, and after lunch came back with the dog. Now as if I’m not panicked enough, I get the point of impact where I had left my arrow stuck in the ground and it was GONE! Some animal had run off with my arrow! I kid you not! So I’m sitting there with no arrow, no blood, no deer, and no evidence whatsoever that I had even shot anything, and I’m thinking to myself, this cannot be happening! Well, I swear to my friend this was the spot where I left the arrow right there where I shot him, and his dog starts on the trail. I’m still in that area looking for the arrow, when almost right away he shouts, “there he is”! I instantly reply, “stop shi**ing me.” He says, “I ain’t, he’s right here.” I run over and sure enough, he had only gone about 15 yards! It was so thick in there I must have walked within 5 yards of him at least once and never saw him; he had taken a sharp left right after the shot, and died only 25 yards from my stand, but it was so thick in there I couldn’t tell. I should have listened to God, he was “close” after all, REAL CLOSE!
