Who decided that only dogs could be man’s best friend?
I received a call from my uncle the previous Sunday inviting me to bow hunt with my cousins behind their house on Tuesday. I jumped at the opportunity since that meant I wouldn’t have to get up as early as I would if I were going to our lease in Coweta County.
Tuesday came and I arrived at my uncle’s at 6:15 a.m. sharp. He walked me back to the ladder stand I would be hunting. I checked the wind before getting in the stand and decided to walk about 15 yards away, scrape the ground, and spray some Code Blue doe estrus on the ground. After that I got settled in the stand.
Right before 7 a.m., I saw movement about 80 yards up on the hill to my right. I slowly reached for my bow and watched a deer approach from directly downwind.
Fortunately I was wearing scent-control clothing from head to toe. I could tell it was a buck, and a shooter at that. The deer continued to approach, and I drew back my bow when it got to 40 yards.
I attempted to make a grunt, but my throat was so dry it hardly made a noise. By now the buck was crossing behind trees and brush at 30 yards. I was still at full draw.
I thought about letting the bow down, but just as I started to relax, the deer made a turn and headed for the spot where I had sprayed the scent. When he stopped in an opening at 27 yards, I put my pin on his shoulder and let the arrow fly.
Whack! I heard a loud sound, and the buck turned and took off running. He hunched and was favoring a leg as he ran off.
I waited about 30 minutes to get down and inspect the area for blood and look for my arrow. I found plenty of blood but no arrow. I made my way back to the stand and waited another hour for my uncle and cousins to decide if they wanted to keep hunting or help me look for the buck. My uncle texted back and said he’d be happy to help me track the deer.
We started off finding a good amount of blood and followed the trail with pretty good ease for about 90 yards. At the 90 yard mark is where I found my arrow. I was shooting Carbon Xpress arrows with the expandable Rage broadheads. The arrow was there except for about 6 inches, which included the fletching. We followed the blood for another 100 yards and decided to mark the trail and return later.
That’s when that sick feeling started to creep into my stomach. That feeling that the shot you made wasn’t as good as you thought and you might not find the deer. I put even more pressure on myself, as I never want to be hunting on someone else’s land and not recover a deer.
I waited another hour and decided to meet up with my cousin to go back and pick up the blood trail. While we were walking back, an orange stray cat was following us. My cousin told me they sometimes feed it on the back steps and it was probably following us in hopes we give it some food.
We made it back to the spot where I left off with my uncle. Only this time the sun was at a different angle and it made it harder to see the blood trail. Not only could I not see the blood trail, but I had lost it completely. That feeling I had went even deeper and my hopes were fading fast.
I said a quick prayer and noticed that the cat that had been following us was in front of me about 10 yards sniffing and licking the ground. I told my cousin to stay where we last found the blood and I was going to check out the cat. To my complete surprise, the cat was on the blood trail.
We continued moving forward over the next couple hundred yards and when we couldn’t find the blood the cat would stay on the trail, stop at the blood, and wait for us to catch up to him. I remember specifically coming across an old gravel road in the woods and I couldn’t see any blood. I noticed the cat sniffing a certain spot on the road so I walked over and it was blood on a leaf. My cousin and I just would look at each other in amazement and laugh.
Eventually we bumped the buck and a doe with it but came across two spots where it had bedded down. We made the decision to wait another hour and give the buck some more time. I noticed during this hour that crows were flying down towards the direction of the deer and were very loud. I happened to Google about crows and learned that they will follow wounded or injured animals. This proved to be true in our situation.
Upon the hour passing, we started making our way towards where we saw the deer go. We continued looking for blood and following the cat. To both of our surprises, after 500 yards of tracking, some prayer, and one unusually gifted cat, we found the 8-point buck.
We were both super pumped. This was my first bow kill and it took me around 6 hours from the time I released the arrow to finding the buck. The sense of accomplishment and the perseverance I learned through all this is something I will carry the rest of my life and hope to pass to my two boys. I was never a cat person but after this experience, it made me reconsider my stance, as I would of never found this buck without the help of a stray orange cat.