Jason's First Deer for 2009

Jason has been enjoying taking Friday's off from work to go deer hunting this fall at his new lease. He has two feeders and stands set up and he's seen multilple deer at both of them. This past Saturday morning Jason got his first deer of the season! He said it was a very exciting hunt. The mixture of the extra alert deer at his lease and the fact that he is bow hunting makes for a very intense hunt. Jason has decided to process his own meat this year, so that will be a fun adventure for us. Should be cheaper too than taking it to a meat processing place.

Below are some pics to share! If you don't want to see them, stop here...
















Jason's email annoucement he sent out:

"Well, after a two year drought, I finally got a deer on the ground! On my third hunt of the season I had two young bucks come to my feeder Saturday morning and I let this spike have it after a very exciting hunt.

About 7:40 I had a deer come up from behind me and I watched him as he approached my feeder pen and get ready to jump in. I could tell he was a young buck, but it took a couple minutes to tell that he had two forks at the top of his antlers. So he wasn’t going to be a shooter. Just a couple minutes after he came in another deer came from the same spot and looked almost identical as far as head gear goes. After looking at him for a while though I could see that he had one slick antler and decided he was going to get an arrow flung at him this morning. This is where it got stressful. I couldn’t move a muscle without the four pointer staring me down. It took me more than five minutes just to finally get the opportunity to get my bow off my lap and into an upright position to draw. And even then it spooked him so bad he jumped out of the feeder pen, but the spike stayed put. After a couple of minutes the four pointer jumped back in and began to eat again. I had no chance to draw without them noticing me so I just waited longer for the opportunity. They must have stopped eating and looked right at me more than a dozen times. Finally the opportunity came when the four pointer had enough of staring at me and trying to figure me out, so he slowing walked out the way he came in. So the spike ate for a couple more minutes and then turned around to leave himself. So when he turned his back to me I drew my bow. This startled him and he took off and jumped out of the pen. As soon as he hit the ground after jumping out, he stopped to see what had made the sound. He was broadside at about 20 yards and I sent an arrow his direction. I saw that it was a poor shot. It hit him pretty far behind the ribs after he lurched forward at the sound of my bow. I watched him run out the way he came in and I heard him pile up less than 50 yards from where I shot him. It was about 8:05.

I got really lucky on the shot and that he expired so quickly. I thought I had gut shot him and I was going to have a long tracking job. From the looks of him after I gutted him, I put the arrow straight through the liver and just tore it almost in half. There was practically no blood trail but I was able to walk right up to where I heard him kicking as he piled up. His body cavity was just full of blood though.

So far the new lease is turning out really good and the hard work getting everything ready is paying off."