Matthew Pointer

Today was a very stressful, long, but ultimately amazing day.

Let me first start by saying, Public land is difficult when trying to get after mature whitetails….

I’ve been after this particular buck since I saw him on camera in Aug/Sept. He was number one on my hit list.
I hadn’t had any daytime picture of this guy until 4 days ago, and I knew I had to get in the stand.
He made appearances two mornings in a row and slipped past my bow range both times.
I decided to move my stand to where he wanted to be and cut him off. I hunted that stand the next morning and he didn’t show.
I had to wait to hunt the new stand until this morning with all the rain we’ve gotten.
I planned to sit all day if needed. It was 26 degrees and crunchy at 6am when I got settled in my stand. At 9:15am it all came together, “Mr. Big” showed himself and stopped at 45 yards and I was able to slip a shot through to him.

Unfortunately my heart dropped as I heard a harder than normal “thud” which I knew to be the sound of a shoulder blade contact.
He mule kicked and bounded off tail tucked out to about 60 yards from the shot. Stopped and I could see the blood flowing down his side and front left leg. He looked woosy and hurt, and slowly walked another 40 yards before I lost him behind a cluster of trees. Thinking he laid down, I decided to wait until 12:30pm before I left my tree to go investigate.

It wasn’t long before I picked up his trail, found large quantities of blood pooled by where I saw him last, and a bed where he laid down. But no deer. Sick to my stomach I attempted to track him a bit farther, but I lost the trail 10 yards from his bed.
I decided to pack it up, give him more time and head home to clear my head. Knowing deer can survive a shoulder shot, I was sick to my stomach.

I opted to call in a deer tracking dog, made a call and met Brian Kendall and his dog Chance. Picked up my son Keegan and headed for the woods.

Chance did amazing, and quickly picked up the trail, and within 15 mins and about 120 yards further than I stopped tracking, I was celebrating with Keegan and holding my biggest to date bow hunting buck.

This was a special hunt for me. I experienced a tree stand failure just a week ago and I thank God I was wearing my harness as both cables on my hang on stand failed at 25’. I fell about 4’ and was caught by my safety line. Please wear your harness, if not for yourself, for your family, for the chance to hunt another day and be successful in tagging your target deer.

I could have written so many more details about this hunt. But I don’t think many people would read a 10 page post on here haha.

If you are in need of a deer tracking dog service, I can not say enough good things about Brian and Chance.

Brian Kendall and Scent Hunter Tracking
Serving Manistee and surrounding counties.
231-299-7133