Big 8 with a longbow

Steve from down in the Texas Hill Country told me about this big 8 he killed with a longbow.

A huge 8-point with a longbow... That's gettin' things done.

"I shot this buck on Monday evening, Oct. 13th. Bob Sarrels had invited me to hunt with him this week. He took my place on a lease I have been on with Bisch for the past 5 years. Bisch shot a really nice 8 pt. on opening day and had a few more nice bucks on his trail cam pic's.

I hunted the same stand where Bisch shot his 8 pt. On Sunday evening I saw a decent 9 pt., a decent 10 pt., a cull 6 pt. and a spike/fork (that I missed). On Monday evening I went back to that stand again. I settled in (about 30 feet up) and immediately had what I thought was the spike/fork back in there. (He ended up being a fork on both sides). As soon as he cleared the brush I shot him. He was quartered away and I hit him a bit far back. I heard him crash fairly close, though, so I was confident he was down.

I decided to sit there and see what else would come in, since the feeder hadn't even gone off yet. The 9 pt. came back in a short time before the feeder went off. A little while after the feeder went off, the cull 6 pt. came in. I decided I would shoot the 6 pt. Before he got into my shooting lane, however, I noticed another deer coming. It was a large 8 pt.

I had been told that there were no restrictions as to what I could shoot, so I began trying to judge the 8 pt. He looked like a mature deer and was certainly bigger than anything I had ever shot before. After a short time he was standing in almost the exact spot the smaller buck had been when I shot him a little while earlier. I took the shot. Again, I hit him farther back than I wanted, but it did the trick. He went about 100 yards before piling up in a thick area of cactus and underbrush.

I tracked, found, and field dressed the smaller buck and dragged him about 300 yards before deciding I couldn't wait any longer to go and look for the 8 point. He left a good blood trail and was not terribly hard to find. I dragged him about 30 yards out of the thick stuff and into an opening where I knew I would be able to find him in the dark.

I went to get Bob and found that he also had shot a buck. He had shot a 2 1/2 year old spike.
It had been raining all day and I only have a two wheeled drive pickup. We were now trying to decide how long it was going to take us to drag 3 deer the mile back to camp. We ended up calling a friend in Tilden (Scott Shallcross) who graciously came to our rescue with his 4 wheel drive pickup. Scott came out and we loaded the deer in his truck and he let us store them in a walk-in cooler he had in town.

The 8 point weighed 210 pounds on the hoof. I green scored him at 129 5/8" gross/ 127 1/8" net.

I was shooting 50# Sarrels Superstition take-down longbow, aluminum arrows, and a 140 grain Magnus 2 blade broadhead with a 100 grain steel insert."

Great job, Steve!

-Russell Graves
Texas

Labels: Texas