We set up on a brush-covered rise that gave us a great view of one end of our location, but offered much cover for our two-man blind. Less than an hour later, I spotted a doe about sixty yards away and whispered to my husband DEER! As I spoke, another deer near the doe raised his head and antlers of white caught my attention. He must have heard me whisper and his gaze stayed fixed upon our position for a few moments before he dropped his head to feed in the acorn litter on the ground.

The doe disappeared from sight as I focused on the buck. He began to feed away from my line of sight.  My hunting guide, for the day, pulled out an arsenal of calls and went to work. Bleats, fawn calls and a few buck grunts attracted his attention.  He turned back and fed as he cautiously watched for those other deer he had heard. The buck passed from one side of the blind to the other and amid his travels I lost sight of him again. The trail he chose brought him within twelve feet of us. I anticipated that his path would cross in front of my blind. I chose to draw as he walked from the right side of the blind but he seemed to spook when he cleared the brush and found our blind. Before I could see him again, he snorted and turned to run.

The wind was in our favor, so we packed up quickly and moved about 15-yards to set up again.

My husband spotted a buck about thirty minutes later. I spotted a doe coming toward me from the same direction. “There is a doe right here,” I said. “NO! That’s the buck!” he told me. I drew as soon as the spike buck's head passed behind the tree in front of me. Aiming for the shoulder, I released while he was walking. I watched the arrow hit him full force a few inches back from the crease in his shoulder.

I was elated! My praise to God and my prayer of thanks found me in tears as I realized my first contact with a deer in seven years of bowhunting! We discussed the archery shot itself and where I had last seen my deer. I was sure we would find a good blood trail as the arrow had penetrated him well.

Over an hour later, we had walked through every inch of the woods south of the log road in an attempt to find the blood trail, sat to rest on a fallen log and then made our way back toward the log road. Faltering in my hope of ever finding the deer, I almost gave up the search. My husband, determined from his own experience in recovering a deer after mortally wounding it, set out to look in the narrow hedge row north of the log road.

Every so often I would look up to see where he was and then resume my own search. When I did not see him as I searched for his form in the trees, I paused to scan the timber line again. Waving his arms with a motion for me to drop to the ground caught my attention. I moved as low to the ground as I could to cover more than 200-yards between us. As I got close, I dropped my gear and crawled, bow in hand, several yards to sit next to him. We both looked through the brush for the deer but he was not there!  "I lost him. He was there but when I looked away to motion to you, I lost him again,” he told me.