Zachary Rach-Illinois

“ My First Illinois Whitetail Buck”

It all started when I moved down to my dad's house. It was four o'clock on the morning of October 20th, and when I was taking a shower to eliminate my scent I thought to myself, “Today was the day I would get my first deer with a bow.” I have had a pretty good year so far. The weather was going to be perfect; a low front was moving in and the high was going to be low 40's with a mist that would end about mid afternoon.

Then I got dressed and my dad and I got in the truck and left to go hunting. We got to the property we can hunt on about 5:00. We figured out our game plan; then we left for the woods. I got to my stand about ten minutes later. I like to get to my stand about 30 minutes before shooting time so I am ready for the early ones.

I was in a stand that was above a shelf that was on my right. Then as I look ahead, I had a fence about 50 yards that deer ran on to go to the cornfield. I scouted this area for a long time till I found this perfect tree. I was up about 28 feet and the stand had a blind on it so they couldn't catch me moving my feet.

It was about 6:45 when I saw my first deer of the day. It was a doe. I was feeling good about picking this tree. There was a little breeze mixed with the mist that helped get the deer moving in the morning. I watched her go by since I wanted to get a buck. About 7:30, I grabbed my rattling antlers and the can. The can is a small plastic bottle that makes a long doe bleat sound. I used the can first, and then I rattled for about 2 minutes. Within 10 minutes, a small four point came on the same trail as the doe did which is on the shelf. I elected to pass him up because I knew there were a lot bigger bucks in that valley.

While the weather was misting on and off the wind died done so it was nice and calm. It was about 9:00 and I heard a bunch of commotion on the other hillside. So I grabbed my True Talker and gave that a nice soft grunt. Then I saw antlers walking my way. I knew he was a shooter. The good 6-pointer stopped about 40 yards away. He was quartering to me very hard so I couldn't get a shot. Then a spike buck came on the trail next to the fence, so the 6-point turned right around and left the same way he came in. I was flustered that I didn't get to shoot him.

I waited till about 10:45 when I rattled and grunted for a few minutes, and then within moments, there was a small 9-pointer walking up the hill on my down wind side. He was already in bow range. I grabbed my bow and drew back. He was about 30 yards when I let one fly and I over shot him. Then he ran about 60 yards and stopped. He looked back and then lifted his tail and blew my location. I was so mad at myself for missing an all right 9-point.

As he was running away, a couple of deer ran from the shelf and out into the open field. I knew my location had been blown. I was very mad at myself but I knew that the lord was with me because I have never had that many deer in on me before. It was awesome! So I felt I should get down from my stand about 1:30 because I hadn't seen anything in a while.

As I was looking at my arrow, there was the 9-pointer from earlier. He was walking in the field about 100 yards away. I checked my fletching to see if I maybe hit him, but there was nothing. I went and found my dad and I told him about all the action. We went back to the truck to get a bite to eat.

After we ate a sandwich and had a coke we headed back for the woods for our evening hunt at about 3:00. We elected to both take different stands because my dad didn't see anything and my action stopped because I was winded. My dad took the stand in the valley that was below where I hunted in the morning. I wanted to take the stand in the huge hay field. The wind had just started back up and it was in my favor once again but the bad thing was the mist had stopped for the day.

I was settled in for a while and decided to rattle and gave a few doe bleats to get those bucks moving. I heard a lot of crashing in the woods across the field, and then a monster 150-inch-class 9-pointer ran across the field. As soon as I saw him, I drew my bow back. The buck stopped about 30 yards away in the field, but I didn't have a shot because there was a big limb covering his vitals, and every time I moved to try to get a shot, I always had that limb in the way. Then as my luck would have it, he ran into the woods and disappeared. I was still shaking when he was gone because I was so nervous.

Then it got to be about 6:00 and I saw a nice 4-pointer in the field, so I grabbed my grunt and grunted. Then he looked in my direction. I had to give him that reassuring grunt to let him know there was another buck in that direction. Then he started to head my way about 6:20. I drew when he got behind the limb and he walked out to the open field about 20 yards broadside. I let the 85-grain expandable fly and it drilled him. He jumped and kicked both back legs. I knew I had a good double lung hit. It was getting darker, so I got down and marked off to where he last was.

At about 7:00 my dad finally showed up. I thought it felt like forever, but it really was only like a half hour. He asked me if I saw a buck go by about 4:00. He said he shot a buck and I told him at that time a monster ran across the field. The buck my dad shot spooked the big buck out of the woods. Then I told him I hit one about 6:30 and I showed him where I last saw him. Then we started to look for him.

As we got about 100 yards into the woods, I thought I could see white, but then it jumped up and took off. We had jumped up the buck that I shot so we decided to leave because my dad told me this saying “When in doubt back out”- said by Stan Potts. We got back at 6:00 to start our look again for the buck.

I had a hard time sleeping that night because it was my first bow kill. We got back to the place where we jumped him and started looking again. We walked about 10 yards and the blood stopped so we decided to split up and I went on a trail parallel to a stream. My dad went up to the top by the field. I walked the trail, because I know a hurt deer wants to have water to survive. I walked about 75 yards and as I was looking around I saw this path that looked like something had been drugged down the hill over the bank and to the water. I saw red water by the path but not above it, so I went and looked at it, and there he was my 4-point.

I yelled to my dad I found him sort of. My dad came over to have a look and what we both saw was a whole body of a deer that only had meat and skin on its neck and head. A pack of wild dogs got a hold of the deer and ate everything. So we cut off the head and left the bones.

Then we went to go look for my dad's deer. He said that he shot the deer kind of high, but it hit one lung. We tracked that thing for about 2 miles and finally all we had left was a speck of blood every 40 yards or so. My dad said to give up. We got back to the truck and left to head home. We got home and popped in a hunting video, so we could learn from our mistake.