CMF
WKR
I was with my son crossbow hunting a ground blind yesterday. He has the tag. We're in the Midwest right now so rut is kicking off. We had a doe come through with two bucks on her, a shooter and small buck, but they're out of range. I try to call to them and they don't even look up.
About an hour later, he says "deer". Here comes a doe, then I see a healthy yearling with her and scan for a buck and don't see one. Due to the yearling and direction of approach, I think this is a different doe than earlier.
The doe closes the distance and gets to 20, I tell him to shoot. He smokes the doe a little back. I think he got one lung and liver, but I didn't autopsy. She slowly walks away while we try to get reloaded to get another in her. That's when I see the buck coming through the brush. The doe walks out to 40 and stops, looks like she'll go down any minute. The buck comes up to smell her. I tell him 40 yards and to shoot. He shoots, I see dust or something fly under the buck and I'm thinking he missed low. The doe walks off behind some brush before we can get another shot off. We check for blood at the buck and find the doe blood trail first. Then a wad of hair from the buck and a clean arrow.
We retreat to the blind and decide to hunt while giving the doe a couple of hours. About 30 minutes later he said "I wish that buck would just pop out". I hit the grunt call. I barely put the call down and he says "there he is". The buck is back at 30yds and staring right at us. Unfortunately, he misses again. I think a combination of alert deer ducking and my range was off from the brush.
Recovered the doe with a little blood tracking effort.
Hunting public in MS, I've rarely had luck with calling. I was pretty excited to see some call action.
I think the hot doe was the key here.
Anyone else had luck calling a buck back?
About an hour later, he says "deer". Here comes a doe, then I see a healthy yearling with her and scan for a buck and don't see one. Due to the yearling and direction of approach, I think this is a different doe than earlier.
The doe closes the distance and gets to 20, I tell him to shoot. He smokes the doe a little back. I think he got one lung and liver, but I didn't autopsy. She slowly walks away while we try to get reloaded to get another in her. That's when I see the buck coming through the brush. The doe walks out to 40 and stops, looks like she'll go down any minute. The buck comes up to smell her. I tell him 40 yards and to shoot. He shoots, I see dust or something fly under the buck and I'm thinking he missed low. The doe walks off behind some brush before we can get another shot off. We check for blood at the buck and find the doe blood trail first. Then a wad of hair from the buck and a clean arrow.
We retreat to the blind and decide to hunt while giving the doe a couple of hours. About 30 minutes later he said "I wish that buck would just pop out". I hit the grunt call. I barely put the call down and he says "there he is". The buck is back at 30yds and staring right at us. Unfortunately, he misses again. I think a combination of alert deer ducking and my range was off from the brush.
Recovered the doe with a little blood tracking effort.
Hunting public in MS, I've rarely had luck with calling. I was pretty excited to see some call action.
I think the hot doe was the key here.
Anyone else had luck calling a buck back?
