God blessed me with a beautiful public land 8 point yesterday. The buck came in right at 5:30 pm. I watched him make a scrape and stand on his back legs to reach a liking branch. He worked the scrape for 2 or 3 minutes all while I'm having convulsions from buck fever. It's been a while since I was able to pull the trigger on a decent buck due to tracking and family activities and my emotions hot the better of me.

As he was finishing up with his scrape, I kept repeating "pick a spot, pick a spot" over and over in my head. He comes a few steps closer, to within 30 yards and starts feeding under a giant oak. I have no shot until he gets to the other side of the tree and he was in no hurry to get there.

By the time he reached the big oak, I had my bow in hand, ready to draw. He goes behind the big oak and I reach full draw and hold. He comes out the other side, still feeding on oaks. I line my pin up behind his shoulder as he stops for a second. My heart is about to jump out my chest and I immediately pull the trigger as he starts walking again.

I watched the red nockturnal nock bury up in his midsection and my heart sank. He runs about 30 yards and hunches up and starts to walk away. He gets to about 60 yards and it looked like he bedded down there. I nock another arrow and hang my how up to try and collect myself. How can I be so overcome by emotions that I botch an easy 18 yard shot.

I check the time and call my cousin to tell him what happened. I was debating whether or not to pull my stand or creep down and sneak out. I waited til 6:40 and started my decent down the tree, pulling my set as I went. The arrow was between me and my exit route, so I decided to check it as I passed. Upon inspection, the arrow is covered in blood, but there is zero blood within eye sight of the hit site. I ease on out and meet up with the rest of the party.

There were 4 of us hunting together yesterday and one of the other guys had killed a doe. So we make the decision to head back and get a cart and I call my bride to bring Spark to the ramp where we were parked. She arrives around 8 and we make the run back to where we were, Spark quivering beside me with excitement.

We get the doe out to buy more time and then go in after the buck. I put Spark on the hit site and she starts to work. She runs a couple circles to sort things out and she locks in, nose on the ground as she's dragging me thru this thick privet hedge. We make it about 80 to 100 yards as she rounds the corner of a big bush, I can see him. I shout to everyone in the party, "here he is!" 

She continues to amaze me at how far she's came in a year. I'd like to thank my cousin/brother, Andrew Miller for helping me get this dude out the woods and my lovely wife, Morgan, for bringing the dog out 2 nights in a row!