Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Last Youth Season Stress and Success

FYSA - Long Read

So...we hunted Friday morning and Saturday afternoon seeing multiple racked bucks, as many as 7 at one time but not the one he was after.. Sunday evening would be different, the buck he was after showed up at 4:45 - there were 7 other bucks out at the time and 1 button head. It was total chaos with deer posturing and the little button head acting like "Chet" off the Santa Clause. The deer were constantly moving, running, getting in the way of a clean shot, etc. All of the sudden they all clear out like their butts are on fire (still have no idea why). After what seemed like forever some of the deer started coming back in - its getting darker now and its overcast so light is getting more and more scarce - when the buck he is after steps back out. He steadies himself "as best he could" and squeezed one off - the deer's reaction told me he missed but I still had hope - fast forward to an hour later - no blood - no sign of a hit. He was ill as an old wet hen because he missed the shot - I did my best to cheer him up and told him we would live to fight another day. About 8 PM he comes in saying "its official, i missed - he's back on camera". He was back and showed up every hour all night so we got in the stand about 5:15 Monday morning hoping for the best.

About 6:15 he stepped out into the powerline and proceeds to chase the other 3 bucks out of his feed. This time he was able to get a round into him (different gun jus to be on the safe side) , but again, i didn't like the reaction so we have it a little while and eased down to where the deer was standing - absolutely nothing except some torn up ground.......so i ease over to the wood line where he ran (which is up an embankment) and look for sign, all of the sudden he tore out of some thick crap in the 3/4 year old pines and all we saw was a tail. We eased up the bank and low and behold there was some blood and some bloody corn.....we marked the spot on Huntstand (and i left my hat cause im old school and it was misting rain) and backed out and got him to school while we waited it out. So now I cant get my work stuff done because I am busy searching ALDEER for a tracking dog and calling bordering land owner to be sure i have permission if needed to track the deer.

I reached out to Norman Parks who was listed in my area and he gladly accepted the task of helping us recover our deer. We met up, met his dogs Winnie, Minnie, and Sam and then got to work. He put Minnie on the track and the garmin showed her treed at about 50 yards so Norman went to get the other two to let them share in the track and recovery - as he was walking to the truck, we heard Minnie start moving through the brush by the time the other dogs got back, she was at 110 yards - winnie and sam got on the track pretty quickly and here we go through the nastiest, thickest 3/4 year old cutover you can imagine. As we were picking our way through the dogs stopped again - we made it to some open woods - my son and I were looking for blood/sign when Norman waved us up toward him and before we got to him he pumped his fist and yelled "you got him!" High fives and smiles all around. He had gone about 250 yards and piled up. The shot wasn't horrible but was a quartering away shot that was a little low.

It was great meeting Norman and his dogs and would highly recommend giving him a call if he services your area - his number is on the tracking list!! We almost certainly would not have recovered this deer without him!! And reading tracking posts here helped me make the decision to call him in the first place!!

Congrats good looking buck

Congratulations

good job man!! Congrats!

Nice looking deer. Congrats to the young man. Tell Norman to never sit in front of a gun especially with dogs running around

Well - couple of things - Norman is the photographer so that leaves me at the wrong end of it ☠️ …..the gun is 100% unloaded and……..when I looked down and saw the way the gun was sitting - I knew it would be called out on here (as it should be) - pictures had already been taken when I saw that the gun had been moved when the dogs were placed (and I wasn’t sitting there for more more pics 😅)

My bad and lesson learned!

The deer appeared to be quartering away slightly and had the shot been an inch or two higher it would have taken out the heart. Had it done so we would not have had the chance to have a great morning with Kevin an Trenton. Congrats Trenton on a great buck!