I was starting my second year of bow hunting. It was about 2 weeks into the bow season and I already shot my first deer with my bow on opening day. It was a pretty nice doe. It was now October 19th, 1997, and I was going to hunt down by an area I call the soy bean patch. I have a stand in a corner of a bean field. A river is just to my left, a huge soybean field is out in front of me, and there is a little bit of woods and a hay field behind me. I have always seen a lot of deer driving by this area and it was public land so I thought I would give it a try and hang a stand there.

The morning was a good one. It was a starry sky and a cool 30 degrees. There was frost on the ground and quite a bit of fog laying low to the ground. I was up in my stand 1/2 hour before legal shooting light and had already heard good movement in the area. Legal shooting time arrived and I had 7 or 8 does feeding out in the beans in front of me. I heard some crunching come from behind me and it was a little 4 point buck. I gave a few grunts on my grunt call and he came right over. He presented a number of opportunities but I was going to pass on this buck. A few more deer joined the feeding frenzy and I had about 12 to 13 deer between 20 and 25 yards away chowing down on some beans.

Then, from behind me. I heard some more crunching going on. This time it was a very large doe. I was really tempted to shoot her but I wanted to wait on a buck. I used my grunt call again and I was amazed at what transpired. This large doe made her way in front of me. She was about 13 yards away. After I let out a few grunts on the call this loud crashing noise coming in from behind startled me. I thought to myself, this has to be a buck. Sure enough, I slowly looked and saw he was a nice 8 point. I got my bow up and got ready for a shot. I did not have to wait long. He placed himself between me and that large doe and stomped a couple of times. I had already drawn my bow and he was probably less than 10 yards away. I shot the arrow and I saw it was a good hit. It was a clean pass through right behind the shoulder. Now, I had one problem. After the shot I looked up and saw deer scattering everywhere. I watched them run and they all started out going the same way. They got out to about 75 yards and with the fog I really couldn't see them anymore. I thought I saw one turn left and all the others went to the right. I sat up in my stand about 1/2 hour before I got down to look for the arrow and blood.

I got down out of the stand and immediately found the arrow and it was just as I suspected. A very good hit. I followed the blood out until I saw where that one deer went to the left. I looked around but didn't see any blood. But with the cool morning and the heat of the buck's body his location gave him away. I knew he was down. I cautiously approached him and he never moved. He was definitely dead. I had now killed my first buck with my bow.  I was definitely hooked on bow hunting for good. I gutted him out but I had one problem, I could not get him in my vehicle. Being on public land I was kind of worried because I would have to go home and get my wife to help me load him up. I hid the buck and went and picked her up. We didn't live too far away so that was a good thing. We went back and loaded him up on the truck. My wife and my kids all congratulated me and I knew at this point the gun was going down and the bow was taking over. I hope you all enjoyed the story.