Another email sent to my land owner friend from yesterday, we hunt with sidelock M/Ls this time of year in Tn.
Mike shot a doe yesterday up near the cedar lane, killed her. About 15 minutes after he shot the doe a huge buck came in trailing another doe. He shot this buck, had a sprayed blood trail down to about the dove field, then things slowed down. He said the shot was behind the shoulder but real low.
He called about noon and I went up to help track. I picked up the trail where he lost it, very spotty with only a small drop every 20 ft or so. I followed the track and occasional fleck of blood across the main road, up the hill to the bench you and I jumped the deer you helped me recover. The deer then followed the trail by your abandoned ol man treestand. This is where I saw the last blood.
I followed tracks around the side of the ridge until the deer crossed the main road a couple yards above the main road plot. At this point we talked ourselves into thinking a deer that went so far, over 1/2 mile, without laying down and had stopped bleeding was probably going to be OK.
This morning I got to thinking, we didn't look enough. We are going back in about 12:30 to hunt through the tornado damage, I am pretty sure this is where the deer was headed.
Yesterday I had just come back from the lifting weights at the gym and had speed walked 4 miles around the TVA trail before Mike called. My butt was dragging, Mike had been looking since 10:00 and was in about the same shape. Our fatigued condition had a lot to do with us pulling off the trail but we are rested today and ready to look some more.
