Lost Buck

It was about 5:00 PM when a large doe moved into view to the south, feeding toward me on the freshly fallen acorns. My heart picked-up the pace as I took out my rangefinder - she was at 48 yards. I'm shooting a new fast bow and practice out to 50 yards, but past 40 still seems too risky. I decided to wait to see if she would come closer. The wind was out of the southwest, blowing from her toward me, so it wasn't my scent that caused her to change her mind. Nevertheless, she reversed direction and fed back away from me. I scanned to the west, hoping that she would circle to me from that direction.

It was my second afternoon hunting this patch of woods and I didn't know the land very well. The first afternoon I had set up in a tree farther to the east, overlooking several well-worn game trails, but hadn't seen anything. Thinking that spot was too open, I was now in a grove of oaks with a few old tote roads as my shooting lanes. I had studied an online satellite photo in my scouting, but you can never really get to know the land until you walk it, and in-season that's limited if you want to keep the deer from knowing you're there.

Another half-hour went by before I caught movement from my other side. A deer slowly moving toward me from the northwest, in and out of the heavy leaves that blocked a clear view of that old tote road. I stood and grabbed the grip of the bow resting on the front bar of my climbing tree stand. A flash of antler and my first thought was that I wouldn't be shooting a small buck on only the second Saturday of September's expanded archery season in Maine.

He took another step and I saw that he was big. Bigger than last year's eight-point now at the taxidermist. I switched into shooting mode and never gave his rack another look.

It took forever for him to get into position for a shot. He was browsing on a path that would take him within ten yards of my tree, but he was quartering toward me the whole time. My heart was pounding and I was breathing hard - so hard at times that I had to breathe through my mouth. He was downwind of me and I worried that he would smell my breath! I was 25 feet above him and the breeze was steady - it must have drifted over him.

He finally reached an old stump below me that had a bush of thick sucker-growth, and as he stepped behind the growth I drew my bow. He had stopped slightly quartering away at 10 yards with his head behind the growth, but presenting me with a good heart/lungs shot. I could wait for him to clear the bush, but who knows how long that would take (with me at full draw) or if he would change direction or finally wind me. I settled my top pin behind his shoulder and touched the release. He shot off to the east at full speed as I noted his trajectory and listened for a crash. The woods were silent (except for me gasping for air) as I listened for some clue to his fate. With a solid hit in the right spot he should go down in less than 100 yards. After a few minutes I thought I heard something off to my left, but nothing from the direction that he had run.

I waited as long as I could before I collected my gear and climbed down the tree. My arrow had passed through him into the ground and was covered with blood, but I also detected a slight funky odor to it. I quietly followed the trail he took, looking for blood, but after 50 yards I was only finding drops. A deer shot through the lungs will blow blood from one or both sides, and it would be far more than what I was finding. I stalked back to my stand and thought for a moment. What was that sound that I had heard from the northwest? I carefully explored in that direction for 100 yards, looking for a blood trail in case he had circled me in his flight. Nothing.

This was the biggest buck that I had ever shot and there was no way I was going to lose him. It was getting dark and my concern was that if I tracked him, and jumped him, he might run so far that I'd never find him. I'd had a chip shot at ten yards and hit him right where I had aimed - so why wasn't he down? The only thing I could think was when he stepped past the bush it had covered more of him than I thought and I'd put the arrow just behind his lungs. With a two-inch broadhead run through him he wouldn't survive, but I had to give him time.

The forecast that night was clear and cold. I decided to back out and come back early the next morning. This strategy is not without risk. A couple years back I lost a nice buck to coyotes when I waited overnight. And a friend actually had a coyote start to eat his deer before he had even climbed down from his stand. But in this case I just didn't see any alternative. It was a long night.

Back at my tree the next morning I heard ravens making a racket far to the northeast as I started to track the blood trail. The drops were sparse and I had to keep stopping to retrace the trail and try to recreate the actions of a running deer more than 12 hours beforehand. I keep a wad of surveyor's tape in my pack for just such a situation, and will tie a small piece to a branch to mark the last drop of blood. This way I can always come back to it, and several pieces will enable me to easily line-up where the animal was headed.

This buck just wasn't bleeding much at all. I started to panic and called home, asking my wife to get on the Internet to look for any tracking dogs that operate in southern Maine. I had heard that trained dogs can find a deer when other methods fail, and I remembered seeing an advertisement for a guy that would offer this service in Maine. The day was beginning to warm-up and I was looking for some insurance in case I hit a dead end. When she called back saying that she had come up empty, I suggested that she call the retailer that just built a new big store in the area - maybe they would have a line on a tracking dog. That turned out to be a mistake when she called back fuming. "Jeff in the bow department said that you should learn how to track a blood trail before you go hunting." Unfortunately this was in the days before tracking dogs became popular - now you can go to the unitedbloodtrackers.org website to find the tracking dog nearest to your location.

It had now been about 45 minutes since I had seen a drop of blood and I was searching in larger and larger circles, bent over at the waist, eyes focused on the ground. I was getting desperate when the sun reflected off something and I stopped. A single drop the size of a pencil eraser on a fallen oak leaf. I touched it and my finger came away with red - I was back on the trail.

I found another drop a few yards beyond, and then another. I had a good bearing on where he was headed, and kept moving in that direction, but the drops were few and far between. When the terrain changed to needles and dirt I lost the blood. It was getting warm, my back was killing me, I was a couple hundred yards from where I had shot the buck, and it was not looking good.

I thought about the satellite photo of the area and the swamp that was in front of me. There was an island of older trees in the swamp and I remembered thinking that it looked like a great bedding area. The buck could have been heading back to the island, so maybe I should go for a hike and see if I can find that sanctuary. Who knows, maybe that's where I'll find him. And at the very least I would get a chance to scout the island.

Picking my way through alders, I reached the swamp and a game trail that headed right into it. It was one of the most worn trails I had ever seen - a deer superhighway. The direction was toward the island, and toward the general area of where I heard the ravens calling earlier. I followed the trail slowly, still not really sure of my plan and not wanting to be too intrusive approaching a bedding area.

Having spent the last few hours with my eyes glued to the ground, it's not surprising that I soon caught sight of a splash of red on the ground - I was back on the blood trail!

75 yards later I found him! He expired in the middle of the trail, still a long distance from the island.

Finally after all that work I could put my hands on his rack, and see clearly for the first time just how big he was. I never did weigh him (all the check-in stations with a scale were closed on Sunday) but I'd say that he was just short of the 200 lb. mark. A mature 12 point that grossed 159 7/8 inches Pope & Young - a trophy by any standards, and a southern Maine monster. Even with him strapped to a deer sled, it was everything I could do to drag him out of that swamp and back to my truck. Lost no more, this buck would fill my freezer and be immortalized on my wall and in my mind.

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