I work in service and never know for sure when my work day will be over until it is. Yesterday I got done fairly early so I scrambled home as fast as I could. I've been hunting the same 2 man ladder stand, across the road from my house, for the past several days and thought I may have been spotted the last time I was in it so I brought my climbing stand and repositioned only about 40 or 50 yds away. I climb the tree to around 25' and looked down only to discover my pull rope had come loose and was in a pile next to my bow on the ground. I climb back down, secure the rope, and climb back up checking the rope frequently. I get to the point where all the slack is out of the rope and keep going. I look down and see my bow about 2' or 3' off the ground and my 2 arrows lying on the ground. @#$%!!! I climb back down, covered in sweat, thinking "ok, this is some kind of sign, I'm just going home", but by the time I got down I thought "well I'll just sit in the ladder stand instead". When I'm about 1/2 way to the stand I think "Hey, wait, where's my release?". I'd left it at the house! Now I'm thinking my day is done as I'm walking back to my house. There are about 5 acres behind my house that I've hunted for the last few years. The property changed hands last year and although permission had been granted to keep hunting, I haven't done it yet this year. It had been just hardwoods with scattered pines and all the normal undergrowth you would expect to find in the woods but the new owners stripped it to bare ground leaving only all the mature trees. This left it pretty open. It was already difficult to hunt (I see a lot more deer on the other side of the road where I started) and I figured it would be even harder now but I called the new owner to confirm that I still had permission and with his ok walked out my back yard to one of two ladder stands. Pretty close to dark I see a deer feeding in the open just on my side of the tree line. I range it at 77 yds. I'm thinking dark is going to catch me but suddenly after about 15 minutes, it starts walking in my direction. Based on it's direction I start ranging trees and planning where I want to shoot. Deer starts at my 9 o'clock and will cross pretty close behind me. I decide when I will shoot and as soon as the deer's head passes behind a certain tree, I draw. When it's whole body is on the other side I let loose.

Woohoo!!! My first bow kill!!!

Deer did a somersault and landed on it's feet 180* from the way it had been going, ran 75 yds and laid down.

I made 3 mistakes that I know of but got lucky.

Mistake #1: Deer turned out to be a spike with little 1/2" antlers that I couldn't see in the fading light.

Mistake #2: When I was preparing to shoot I ranged a tree and estimated the difference to the deer from the tree. I should have ranged the deer. I used my 30 yd pin and the deer was actually around 25- 27 yds I think. My shot was a little high.

Mistake #3: When the deer emerged from the other side of the tree I didn't stop him, I just shot. It's one thing to do this on a slowly walking deer at 100 yds with a rifle bullet traveling over 2000' per second, it's a whole other thing to do it at 25 - 30 yds with an arrow traveling somewhere around 300' per second. I aimed for a deer standing still and hit a moving deer a good 12" further back than I wanted. I got lucky because it was a total gut shot but the rage did it's work and now he's quartered in my cooler!

Thanks for reading my story. I'm glad to have finally gotten it done. There is no comparison between a bow and a rifle kill. My rifle is put up for the year and I'm not even sure if it will come out next season.