For what it's worth, I wanted to share my mornings events. Last July I traded another ODT member (J.D.) for a crossbow. I had never hunted with a bow or crossbow and was excited to try it out. I'm usually the guy who likes to take crazy long shots with my rifle so I knew this was gonna be totally different than what I was used to and was excited for the challenge. Hunted with it last year with no luck and I've had a slow start to the season this year as well. Well, all that changed today! Had to go to the inlaws today but got up this morning for a quick hunt before we had to leave. 9:00 rolled around and I packed up and started heading to the truck. As I was walking down the road I was thinking how I needed to put a climber in the woods to my left where there are lots of oaks and as I had the thought I looked over to my left and standing there 15 yards away, behind some brush looking at me, was a deer. I froze and she didn't move. We shared a moment gazing into each others eyes and it didn't appear she was gonna bolt and run. I quickly took two steps forward to get a tree between her and I so I could put a bolt back in the crossbow (unloaded it getting out the stand and didn't reload for the walk to the truck). I quickly loaded it and took two steps back and she hadn't moved. I pulled the crossbow up and all I could see was a a little piece of her back, her neck and head. The bush she was standing behind wasn't thick so I aimed where her chest should be and let the bolt fly. I heard the smack and she jumped and bolted for the briar patch (wish I knew why deer were so fascinated with taking their last breath in the biggest briar patch in the vicinity). I stool there in disbelief for a sec then made a break for the spot where she was to look for blood. Found the arrow and it was covered in blood, so I backed out to give her time to expire so I wouldn't push her deeper into the woods. 45min's later I walked right to her, about 5 yards from where I shot her. Haven't been this excited about killings deer in quite a while! For those who say pic's or it didn't happen...see below!
