Opening Morning Doe

I've been trekking up to South Georgia for the opening weekend of archery season for the past seven years or so, and until this year, I've never even seen a deer from the stand on the opening weekend. My wife would wonder out loud why I keep going just to sit in a tree with my bow and get bit by mosquitoes. My answer was simple, "If I keep at it, sooner or later things will turn my way."

Well, this past weekend it payed off. This year I dropped my membership to the big lease and kept a small 60 acre lease with my brother Jacob. I decided to take a less is more mentality to the property and pretty much just left it alone all off-season. Opening morning I slipped into a stand I hung in a thick creek bottom last Spring. After sitting for an hour and a half, it seemed to be shaping up to be a pretty uneventful morning. To pass time I began studying the topo map on my iPhone when I caught movement to my left. I looked over to see a doe at 20 yards standing broadside. As I slowly reached over to grab my bow, another doe that I hadn't seen caught my movement and ran off into the thicket, this put the first doe on high alert. She began to stomp the ground as I slowly drew my bow. Just when I reached full draw and began to settle my pin behind her shoulder, she busted off. I was bummed!

I was sitting there thinking how I had blown a perfect opportunity. Ten minutes later I again caught movement to my left. This time I was ready. A big fat doe began to walk across the creek at 24 yards. As her head went behind a branch I drew my bow. She took one more step and stopped. I placed my top pin right behind her shoulder and let it fly. "Thwack!" She jumped up, kicked out her back legs and crashed into the thicket from whence she came.

After waiting 40 minutes I decided to get down and look for blood. When I got to where I shot her at all it took was one look into the thicket to see her white belly. She didn't run more than 25 yards! It was a perfect slightly quartering away shot that went in right behind her shoulder and broke her other shoulder on exit. I am very please with my new T3 mechanical broad-heads by G5.

Jacob and his son Noah were hunting the big lease so I had a long drag back to the truck with a fat 130 pound Georgia doe. After a really tough season last year it felt great to open this season with a successful bow hunt and get some good eatin' in the cooler.