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A doe before work and new target buck

Y

Yipez

New Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
19
Location
Northern Virginia
Went out this morning in a flood plain next to a suburban development where I suspect no one else hunts. I found the spot on google earth and used the timeline feature to go to a winter photo and see where there was green when the deciduous trees dropped their leaves. I identified a spot in the oxbow of the creek that had a small stand of evergreens (20x20 yards) about 100 yards southeast from a very large stand of evergreens (250x250yards). I set up on the edge of the smaller stand in between the two right at light. Had a forky come through too early to shoot, but about an hour into the sit I have two does coming my way.

For context, in my county you have to kill two does before taking a second buck and I'd already tagged a spike and one doe. So these two does were working my way at maybe 30yards, when at 40yards a 12pointer stepped out and just stood there. I have never in my life had a larger conflict of interest than in that moment. I would hazard to guess he was a 150" buck.. tall, fat tines, nice symmetry, great color on his body. It pains me to recall how beautiful this deer was.

He put his head down and started marching toward the lead doe, which I was eyeing as my shooter. She got nervous and started hurrying toward me, came into about 10 yards and stopped with her near side leg forward. I squeeze and put one through her heart and into her opposite side leg, dropping her on the spot but with the arrow shaft still sticking out of her. Unfortunately she didn't go out quiet as a result; I guess she couldn't bleed out because the shaft was stopping up the blood? Anyway she kicked for a minute on the ground and I put another in her lungs to stop her but she ended up spooking the buck.

She was the first deer I've gutted that was lactating, and she must've been super hot because as I was opening her up a forky came in to like 15 yards to watch. I shot her at about 7:00am and had to be at work at 8:30am this morning, so I gutted her out, grabbed her heart and liver, washed the blood off my hands and dragged her to a nice shady tree to hang out until I can grab her during lunch. I cannot wait til this evening.. tenderloins and leftover osso buco for dinner :yum: What a hunt and what a morning! Goes to show that a little hang time can go a long way. Now to track down that buck.
 
I don't know if it's available on the web version, but if you download the program there's a clock looking button on the top left of the map. If you hover over the buttons with your cursor it will say something like timeline. You just hit that and it will give you a bar that you can go forward and back through all the old GIS maps Google has on record. It's a great tool. I use it to see historic land uses, when developments were built, looking for bedding as described above, and looking for water that gets hidden by tree canopies.

If you don't want to screw with Google Earth I've found that if I use the Bing satellite maps on Hunt Stand, they are often winter photos. That lets you look for evergreens and water as well.
 
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