David Thompson

USA – Caseyville , IL

For 4 months I tracked this deer from the first day that it showed up to our property to opening day. I have all kinds of trail cam pics with him in velvet to videos of this deer. On 1-10-10 opening morning I saw a couple mature bucks but I was on a mission to take this one. About 7:30am he came up behind me and I was never able to get a shot on him but I knew that I would see him late in the day. I went back out around 3pm and had a couple doe’s walk around me then at 5:15pm he appeared rate in front of me about 40 yards away. I was not comfortable taking that shot with all the limbs in the way so I waited and sure enough he walked all the way up to me and stopped at 17 yards and that was close enough. I took my shot and hit a little high. After waiting for about an hour I got down and backed out of the woods. I waited for 3 hours before I went to track him. I found my arrow broken in half and covered in blood. We looked for about an hour and bumped him once. That’s when I decided to just back out again and wait till morning. In the morning it took only 15 minutes to find him in the creek after he walked down the middle of it and then collapsed. This was my first buck with a bow and my first deer I have had mounted. He was green scored at 160.