First Crossbow Kill

It wasn't especially pretty.  A little bit of a rodeo.  But I got it done.

Eric arranged for me to have this Ravin crossbow a year ago and I just haven't had a chance to put it to work on a live animal yet.  With the buck tag filled, it seemed like the thing to do.

So I was in the driveway stand on a calm evening.  I saw a total of seven does.

Eventually, a mature doe walked within 30 yards and I decided to give it a go.  Of course, I had an audience of 4 other does but I managed to get the shot off without getting busted.  To my horror, the doe went lame, wouldn't put any weight on the front left leg, and hobbled almost out to the driveway.  I could see a gash in the upper leg.  The rest of the crowd ran a little bit and then turned around to stare at me.

Panicked that I had wounded a doe, I got out the crank, re-cocked the crossbow, got another arrow out of the quiver, got it loaded, ranged her at 50 yards, got on her and let another one fly.  She crossed the road, went up the bank, entered the prairie patch, and, I thought, probably fell down.

I had 30 minutes of daylight left.  I wasn't sure how well I hit her.  I wanted to give her time but I wanted to find her in light.  I went looking for the arrows and only found one (luminocks are awesome).

Near where she stood at the driveway, I found good blood.

I was able to follow a substantial blood trail into the prairie grass and found her 20 yards in.  What a relief.

The second shot was on the mark and made quick work of it. I can only guess that I got on the 20 yard dot (instead of the 30) on the first shot.

Here's the evidence.  

It was an easy recovery.  I drove the tractor right up to her, put her in the bucket and got her to the barn for clean up.  She weighed 115 pounds field dressed which is pretty typical for the adults here.

In the course of that activity, I discovered that the tractor bucket looked weird and I was dragging a bunch of dirt and mud around. I found that one of the two supports that is used when you take the bucket off the tractor had lost its pin.  I had no idea when that happened but when I checked trailcams, I found this.

I guess that I'd been dragging that around all day while I was bush-hogging to fight back the locust trees.

This is an example of my battle with them.

I have multiple spots that I have to defend.

The locust has these sharp spikes - I'm not sure if it is honey or black locust.

I also had a nice walk and checked the cameras.  Encountered lots of sign.  Buck bomb above and doe pile below.

Bonus poop of the week - not sure what this is - coyote?

More buck sign.

This is a tree where I used to have my camera mounted.  I guess my camera was cramping their style - they've rubbed it up since I moved it.

I was disappointed that my camera didn't show much activity at the gut pile.  It had clearly been worked over though.  Stomach contents showing with some obvious corn.

This is me preparing to take a photo of the scrape beside my licking branch at the driveway stand.

And this is the scrape itself.

It has been getting hammered with activity.

The cameras also had the gun week activity.

Mr. Nubs on the way to the processor/taxidermist.

And, lots of the usual suspects.