I bet CNC or Idaho Mike would have tracked that one all the way to the trailer closet and saved you the trouble.

Several years ago, I shot a large buck at the beginning of the season with my longbow. It was maybe 20 minutes from dark when he came in, and he fed on acorns below me for several minutes. He never gave me a shot in the shooting lanes I had, but finally stopped where I had a basketball size opening leading to his lungs between the limbs. I was shooting stone points, and he was maybe 8 steps from me. I attempted the shot, but the arrow deflected off something and stuck the buck in the hip rather than the ribs. He jetted, and on the way to the next county, I saw my douglas fir arrow snap off and land in the leaves before he got out of sight.

I knew that it wasn't good, but I waited to nearly dark, and got down and found my arrow. There was a little bit of blood on the end of the clean break, resembling a chalked pool cue. And what was left of the arrow meant that only the stone point and a couple of inches of shaft stayed in the buck. I came back the next morning and found only a tuft of hair where the buck stood and only about 25 yards of muddy tracks where he spun out. I did find what the arrow hit though. Square in the opening I shot through, hung a pencil sized limb. It was broken where the point hit it, and although I could see it in the daylight, I never saw it in the fading light. I hated myself for not seeing that limb, but I figured with where I hit him and what my broken arrow told me was left in him, I didn't think he was hurt that badly. At least that's what I told myself to be able to sleep. I never saw the buck again.

Fast forward to the next spring. A friend of mine called me at work and said he found the buck I shot with the stone point. I asked him to clarify, and he told me he was holding the latest issue of AL outdoor news and was looking at the deer's rack and my stone point in a picture. Sure enough, the last week of the deer season, a guy shot the buck about 3/4 a mile away from where I saw him with a rifle. When he was cleaning it, his knife hit something in the hip that wasn't bone, and he worked it out and discovered my stone point, still embedded in the buck. I got the guy's number, and met with him to get pictures, and show him my bow. We had a good laugh about it, and when I got home I started the story that I named *Lucky Souvenir* eventually went to press in Traditional Bowhunter Magazine.

I hate I didn't get the buck, but I did get a good story out of it.