Got done working on a class project on Wednesday afternoon early enough to justify a trip out to nearby Tuskegee National Forest just southwest of Auburn.

I was with my hunting buddy Clint and he knew of a good hardwood creek bottom from experiences a couple years ago.  When we arrived, the white oaks were raining hard mast so I headed south and he headed north from where we parked the truck.

I really thought I had screwed up my hunt when I walked too far and then had to double back towards the truck to find a good spot to hang my stand, but I guess that spot was just too good.

It was sure beautiful.

White oak ridge leading up out of a swamp to a pine cutover on higher ground.  Dogwood midstory.  Open understory because of some recent prescribed burns.  Custom made for deer foraging on acorns.

I hadn’t settled in longer than 30 minutes when I looked behind me back towards the swamp and saw a deer step into an opening.  There were a few water oaks in the standing water and it was picking around for some acorns.  I brought my binoculars up and saw that he was just a little yearling buck – maybe 5″ spikes on both sides.  Definitely a free pass.

He fed to within 30 yards, but even if he had been a 10 pointer I could not have shot him because he always stayed right behind some leaf cover or behind a tree trunk when he was broadside in a shootable position.  No worries…he wasn’t a 10 pointer.

He fed off and within 10 minutes my cell phone was buzzing.  I was hoping it was Clint calling to say he had shot a deer, but it was my wife making her customary call after she gets off work.  I whispered a couple minutes with her, but looked up to see a deer coming from the same direction the spike had just left.  Surely it was him coming back to the white oak feast on the forest floor below me.

Just to be safe, I quickly exited the conversation and pulled my binoculars up.  Slickhead.  Granted she wasn’t an ounce bigger than the spike that I had just seen, but no antlers meant she was a freezer candidate.

Unbelievably she walked right along the edge of the swamp past me at 45 yards before angling up the hill to eat acorns directly on the other side of the tree trunk that my climbing stand was attached to.  She wandered back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, until finally I thought she was going to clear the vegetation and the tree trunk and give me a shot.  Then she turned back and forth and back and forth.

8 minutes later, I was still looking for my first shot opportunity.  By this time I pretty much knew every yardage in her direction and when she entered the opening to the right of the old rotten log on the ground.  (see picture below).

29 yards quartering away, ranged and re-ranged.  I focused on her through the peep, came back off my sight to double check my form, settled back in and squeezed the trigger.

I didn’t see the arrow in flight, but it felt like a good shot.  She bolted back into the swamp and I could hear her splashing water as she ran.  After 3 or 4 seconds, I heard her stop and then the sound all bowhunters love – CRASH!

Long story short, I met Clint back at the truck, grabbed a drag rope and knife, and got back on the blood trail just as night was falling.  70 yards later, we made the recovery.

She was a yearling doe weighing about 75-80 pounds and my second public land deer of the week.  It was a perfect sh0t as the arrow entered on the last rib and transected her vitals before exiting the opposite shoulder.

I’ll save the rest of the broadhead damage, penetration, blood trail information for the second part of the Rage Broadhead review that will be coming to you tomorrow.

Oh yea, I can’t forget yesterday’s lunch after I skinned out both my deer.

Does it get any better?