The deer cut into the light brush clearing along the logging road and approximately 30 yards in front of me. I saw small antlers, and since I am still a junior hunter, exempted from counting points, I paid no more attention to identifying how big the antlers were. Any first archery deer is a good deer. I waited until his head went behind some trees and I drew my bow. He took his time and sniffed around, and then he inched forward with his head to the ground, nipping off a leaf here and there. He came into the clearing, but I hesitated, wondering if it was close enough. As I did so, I peeked out of the corner of my eye and saw my nock, and suddenly realized the little rubber gasket between my quick-release and the arrow nock was pushing the nock out of place and the arrow was about to slip off!! I held on for as long as I could and just as the buck’s head went behind a tree, I let my bow down, but it came down faster then I wanted it to and the arrow came off with a slight clang. Fortunately, I have the habit of laying my finger on the arrow while letting down and I caught the arrow, preventing it from falling through the drop-away rest.

I remained still while the young buck peeked from behind the tree, and as he moved on, I silently adjusted the rubber ring on my string and nocked my arrow back into place. I held my bow up, but waited for a better time to draw. I watched as the young buck sniffed out the drag scent of the button buck my mom shot, and traveled up the same way. Seeing him coming to a clearing, I drew my bow as his head was hidden behind some bushes. He stepped out of the brush and slowly stepped past a tree. Judging it to be slightly beyond 25 yards, I aimed high, but still made sure my pin was on his back, in case I had misjudged the distance. He began to angle away, and then he stopped. I laid my finger on the release and I let the arrow fly. I watched as the bright orange and white fletching flagged the way to its mark. The arrow hit with a thwump right behind the shoulder, but perhaps a couple inches high. I heard the deer give a hacking cough as he ran and I suspected the lungs had been hit.

I listened to him run, then silence surrounded the woods, except for the trees, still dripping with very light rain. I collapsed into the seat and grinned. I knew the hit was good, although the arrow had not gone all the way through. Once I caught my breath, I reached in the backpack for the walkie-talkie and turned it on. No one answered my beeps, so I figured everyone at the house was busy. I waited 15 minutes and climbed very cautiously and quietly out of my stand and headed towards the house, just about a 150 yard walk on the logging road. I arrived and knocked on the door. My little brother and sister opened it and I told them to be quiet and just tell mom she needed to come to the door. I waited, trying to put on a straight face. When she came to the door, I held my smile back for a while and said, "Dog blasted! Why don’t you turn the walkie-talkie on?! I tried calling!!" She looked at me, puzzled and asked if anything was wrong. "Yeah! I lost my arrow!!! That buck carried it away with him!" I grinned. Mom put her hand on her mouth. She asked, "was it a good hit?" to which I replied, "Oh yeah!"

Since Dad hadn’t come home from work, yet, we packed up the kids in camo and orange and headed out to track. The rain started to pick up slightly as we started tracking. Obviously my arrow stuck in the deer for quite a while, because we couldn’t find it nearby. It was a little blood here and there, with an occasional big splat. We lost the trail after only 50 yards and decided to try looking down hill, in the brush along the logging road. As the rain continued, it began to feel like deja-vu from last year, nice buck, bad brush, and bad rain. It began to get dark, and the flashlights we had with us didn’t work too well. We heard Dad pull into the driveway and Mom took the kids back and brought back new flash lights. While she was gone, I found more blood pointing somewhat downhill, into heavy brush. I groaned. We looked for a while, and then I decided to follow my previous instinctive thoughts, "This buck is young, somewhat inexperienced, so wouldn’t he follow a major trail?" As that thought came back again, I looked uphill, and could make out a major trail. "Mom, I think I’ll check up here" She replied, "Yeah, but deer usually go downhill when injured" I told her my thoughts on him following a major trail and she nodded. "I guess so"

I followed the up-wards trail, crouched low to the ground, searching for "evidence" and laughing to myself as I thought of the show C.S.I. Suddenly, I saw red and screamed to Mom, who was still searching down hill, "Blood! I found blood!" Mom came up beside me and shone her flashlight around, and we saw more blood. As I marked the spot, Mom said "There’s your arrow!" I walked to where she pointed and looked puzzled. She came up to me and pointed at my feet, and right there laid my arrow, a piece of lung tissue still lodged in the mechanical blade. We followed a really good blood trail, which went along the ridge for 50 yards and then angled down, 50 more yards. Suddenly, I spotted a white belly in the brush. "There he is!!!"

More than two hours after I had shot this buck, I knelt there and held his little spike and fork. I was shocked at his massive body size, and amused at the fact that he was now only 100 yards from the house, an easy drag! He was also very stiff, meaning he had died less then a minute after I shot him, going along with the amount of the crashing I had heard. Our field dressing showed a double lung shot, and also revealed to us that the arrow had shattered half a rib while entering, deflected slightly, and then jammed against a rib on the opposite side. He might have been a small racked buck, just three points total, but he was a trophy to me! My first archery deer, shot and retrieved, and I am content to wait till next year for the big one!