Texas Archery Whitetail: BBD!

8 December 2007

Posted by Darrell under: Hunting Stories .

I did finally take a nice whitetail buck while in Texas. It was my second whitetail buck of 2007. November 24, 2007. A good day to take a buck!

The buck I ended up getting was a great 8 pointer and would have most people back home in Missouri where I hunt pretty darn excited. Unbelievably, it was the smallest 8 point I saw while in Texas!

I shot it during a pretty heavy rain. I aimed low and behind the front leg and had a perfect quartering away angle at about 30 yards. I wasn’t about to take the chance of hitting it’s leg bone or shoulder. It looked like a solid heart hit. The arrow did not pass through and as the deer walked off the arrow was hanging out of his side. Because of my prior experience with these crazy Texas whitetail I put another arrow through it. This one was a pass through and took out a lung.

The deer ran off like he didn’t have a whole lot of cares in the world. I waited 30 minutes and went out to find him. Unfortunately, the heavy rain had washed away any blood. I started thinking I might be in for another long day trying to find this buck. After about 30 minutes of looking in the general direction he ran, I actually jumped him up. He took off at a good clip down a slight draw. I waited a little while and headed after him. Again, I couldn’t find blood because of the rain.

I tried to follow the path of least resistance as I had no idea where the buck went. After several hundred yards I came to a small rock bluff. It had several steep trails running down it but I couldn’t see a wonded deer trying one so I started skirting the edge of the bluff. I found my deer piled up about 100 yards along the upper edge of the rock drop off. He appeared dead.

As I approached him and started to bend over him, he raised up and tried to gore me with his antlers. Fortunately for me, he was really weak and I was able to grab his horns and wrestle him back down and quickly dispatch him. He was the toughest deer I’ve ever killed. My arrow was still sticking out of him. It had went through his heart and lodged into his opposite leg. My other arrow had taken out a lung.

This deer had only one lung and no heart. However, he managed to run almost 500 yards. I’m probably fortunate to have found him under the circumstances. There was no blood due to the rain and he want a long, long way. When it was all said and done I had a beautiful Texas whitetail buck that I’ll always remember.

It’s funny, when we planned our Texas trip, I hadn’t even guessed that taking a nice buck would be part of the deal!

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7 Comments so far...

deerPhD Says:

8 December 2007 at 6:28 am.

Wow, this sounds like some trip and an amazingly strong whitetail buck! Congrats on your second buck of ‘07. Mix those in with your gobblers, and I’d say you’re having quite a year this year.

Arthur Says:

9 December 2007 at 7:50 pm.

No doubt! I’m with DeerPhD with the kind of year you’re having and here I sit thinking my year was great because I shot a doe!

Congrats on a nice buck Darrell.

Phillip Says:

9 December 2007 at 9:04 pm.

Wow,that was one heck of a trip. Looks like it was raining pretty danged hard, when you took that big boy. Congrats on sticking it out and finding him!

Kristine Shreve Says:

10 December 2007 at 9:18 am.

Congratulations on the buck. You certainly are having a nice year.

Jeff Says:

11 December 2007 at 6:22 am.

What a nice buck - I love the dark horns. As for all of the arrows bouncing off of your deer’s shoulders, I would think that was crazy if I had not seen something similar, but with a gun.
About 10 years ago, my friend and I were hunting here in SC. We both had 30-06s with just some plain old lead-tipped ammo. He shot a button buck, and when I got to him, he said that it had run off. We looked around until I found an entire pile of guts…. so I knew we had him, but where. We found him another 75 yards away.
Not only had that deer managed to get that far without a single organ left in him, but when I checked out the hit, I found something crazy. The deer had been slightly quartering to my friend, and when the bullet hit the deer’s shoulder, it actually skidded down the deer’s bone and went in further back towards the ribs. So I know exactly how tough those shoulders are! Of course I now only shoot premium bullets, and I have not had a problem since.
Congratulations again on a great buck.