I text my buddy, “Just put an arrow thru him,” and he responds, “I heard.” We take our time getting down and examine the point of impact and immediately find good blood. We give him about 45 minutes. But, one thing is heavy on our mind: Another front is coming that is supposed to bring heavy rain within a few hours. We decide to follow blood while it looks good, which it does. Shortly up the trail, I find my arrow, which is coated with blood from Rage to Lumenock. It looks like good blood, but not lung blood. This is somewhat concerning. We push on and he enters thick nasty mountain laurel on the ridge, and the blood trail becomes harder to follow. I decide we better give him some more time. I DO NOT want to push him if he’s bedded in the laurel.
My buddy checks the radar on his phone, and it looks rain is moving in within the hour. We wait until the rain is almost upon us and the decision is made to push on. We follow a tough blood trail for 200 yards through the laurel and lose it a few times. The blood is going from good, to ok, to poor. I’m starting to get concerned. He has now paralleled the ridge and is headed straight down. We continue on, drop by drop of blood, until we reach the base of the ridge and it crosses a trail. He is now headed straight into the same swampy creek bottom he come from a few hours earlier when he approached my stand.
I stop on the trail, and look at my buddy. ”I think we should back out until tomorrow.” I accepted the fact that we wouldn’t have a blood trail to follow in the morning and would be just looking for a deer, but he has gone a long way and hadn’t bedded down once. We also haven’t pushed him. I highly doubted he would leave the creek bottom. We marked last blood with an arrow and backed out. I now can’t sleep and talk to the other Oak Ridge team members. Every one of them says, “He’ll be dead in the creek by the morning.”
I don’t sleep but 40 minutes all night, and meet some buddies to start looking at first light. It’s pouring and miserable. We start at last blood fan out and head toward the creek, which is about 150-200 yards from the base of the ridge. I am on the far right and I don’t rush, however I don’t look too hard in the bottom. My gut feeling tells me go straight to the creek. I get there and stop on the bank. I am looking around and wondering what to do next. I am the first one to reach the creek. I take a few steps so I can get a better view downstream. ANTLER!
Fifty yards downstream, I see a G2 and G2 jutting up out of the creek. That’s it. I drop my bow and pack and lose it! My hollers filled the whole bottom and I am soon joined by my buddies. We all get soaked trying to cross the creek and get to him. I walk up and grab a hold of the Skinny 8, the moment I’d been anticipating for over a year. I get his head partially out of the water and realize he’s much bigger than I thought. He must have grown 15-20”, going from 4.5 to 5.5 years old. Rick then grabs him and muscles him out of the creek. I then realize no G4 and no busted brow! The deer I got a picture of the night before is a different mature buck!
I am still as elated as I write this, and somewhat shocked as I’ve finally achieved my goals after years of hard work. I have learned a few different things from this