Doe Harvested

I harvested a doe from my treestand a couple of days ago from the tree stand. I made two short grunts with my call and I noticed it heading towards my stand over my left shoulder. I slowly raised my bow towards it and got halfway up when it stopped and looked up at me. It bobbed it's head and stomped its foot. I remained motionless for what seemed like a couple of minutes while it continued to try and figure me out. When it satisfied itself that I was not a threat it put it's head down and I was able to raise the bow the rest of the way very slowly so that I could take aim. I shot it and it went right down so I did not need to track it.

I hung the deer overnight in the garage after purchasing a gambrel as I was not able to hoist it by myself. Yesterday I processed the deer and cut it up mostly into steaks and stewing meat. I took the time to trim off the fat and sinew so the whole process took most of the day.

Deer Bowhunt

This is my first year bowhunting for deer after receiving an Excalibur Pheonix crossbow for my birthday.  It is equiped with basic peep sights and I am using aluminum Easton bolts with G5 Montec 125grain broadheads.  I purchased a Big Dog BDL-100 Foxhound ladderstand at Meijer's in Fort Gratiot for $60USD.  I will be hunting on a friends farm about twenty minutes away. 

Made it out to the farm this morning and the sky was clear on my walk back to the bush and there were a gazillion stars in the sky. Once in the stand for about a half an hour I heard a crashing sound behind me that I thought must be a dear. I sat motionless but did not hear anything else. I was upset that I didn't get a glimpse of what I was sure must have been a dear to make all that racket. It couldn't have been the squirells that frequent the spot. I could hear what sounded like a turkey call up in the air above me and wondered if that was the source of the noise. Then about forty yards to my right I saw a large bird fly to the ground, crashing through the brush with it's wings. Then another and then another right over my head. There were five in all and they were turkeys. They congregated together and I remained motionless as I tried to see if I could see if they were males or females. They were all males as they each had a beard. I remained motionless for the next half hour as they all passed within my ten metre marker and walked behind my stand. I'm sure they saw me but didn't seemed bothered my my presence.
The wind picked up so after sitting for three hours and not seeing any deer, I decided to go for a walk to see if there was any sign. I met up with Mike who was also walking around after sitting for the morning in his stand.