He's no giant but man it was an exciting hunt with ups and downs. I got out late since i shot and butchered a public land doe in the morning. Someone was in the spot I was planning on hunting. Pulled up my hunting app and picked out a different spot just from the map. Walked out there and somebody whistled at me there, so I backed out once again. Walked a while until I found acorns, scat, and a good travel corridor. Got up in my tree and played the wind. Saw nothing until this guy walked in around 7:10. Was already low enough light in those woods that I couldn't tell how big he was but I could see his rack was outside the ears and thats a shooter by my public land standards. I guessed the yardage at about 30 yards which turned out to be 35. I had to hold my draw long enough that my bicep started cramping. He took a step forward when I shot and thanks to my lighted nock I knew immediately that the shot was way too far back. I was sick to my stomach seeing that but it was encouraging that I had a full pass through with a megameat. When I got down and inspected the arrow and surrounding there was tons of blood but I immediately backed out and gave it 5.5 hours due to seeing stomach matter. Got help from my buddies to go out and track him around 12:30am. Tons of blood early but started to be less as we went. After about 450 yards of tracking we started to see lots of saliva. He did a half circle and my friend knew he was about done. Sure enough there he lay dead in his first bed, not stiff at all. The exit wound was even further back. Hate what happened with the shot in imperfect circumstances but it was a perfectly timed retrieval.
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