My First Archery Mule Deer

I have always hunted deer during the rifle hunt. Last Christmas my parents and my husband bought me a bow. WOW! I wasn't sure what to think. My husband and I have been working on building our own little family and now have two little kids of our own. I've seen them all go out on the bow hunt and thought this will never work having two kids to tend to. Hunting archery is tough and takes a lot of time and patience....two things that I lack! We somehow made it work though. I got the rest of my archery gear, Bushnell Trophy 10X42 binoculars and a Bushnell Scout 1000 ARC rangefinder and was ready for the adventure!

The archery hunt is about the only hunt where the whole family can get the tags and go. We spent every spare second we had on the mountain scouting, checking cameras and setting up ground blinds getting ready for the hunt.

We would all take turns staying back at camp with the kids while the others would go hunt. It turned out to be a blast. My mom, dad, brother and husband have been at this for a few years now and are not going to settle for anything less than a monster. We had seen some really big bucks on the cameras at night but they wouldn't show during the day. I started calling them vampires bucks. I spent alot of time in a ground blind and for me that was horrible. Being couped up in that little thing for hours on end was just about more than I could stand.

I was just about to give up when my parents said they would take a turn with the kids one Saturday night and sent me to sit in my mom's blind that was setup on this pond. I waited for about an hour watching, glassing and nothing!! It was about a half hour before dark and I was about to give up and head back to camp when this buck came into view. He walked down around me underneath the pond to this small meadow about 90 yards away. I wasn't sure what to do, I knew it would be dark soon and didn't want him to get away. I thought about trying to get out of the blind to go sneak but my husband and brother where in the back of my mind saying patience, patience. It paid off! He soon headed back up towards the pond and made his way to the water about 30 yards away. I was so nervous it took every bit of energy I had to get my bow pulled back and then when I did I couldn't even see out of my peep!! I took a deep breath, looked again and released. I heard it hit hard and he was gone. By this time it was pretty much dark and I couldn't see where he went. I ran back to camp to tell my family. We waited to go find him until the next morning and found him about 90 yards from where he was standing when I shot. My little boy was so excited he had a perma-grin all day!

So here is the first story of girls taggin out! I hope you enjoyed and will watch for more hunting stories to come soon!