First Archery Buck

First archery buck taken by Craig Turney in November 2006 at Covenant Ranch, Tupelo Oklahoma.

Sunday after Church I decided that I would go out and sit in my tree stand in the pecan bottom behind the watershed. We got home from Church about 1300hrs and had lunch. I got changed into my camo and headed out. I entered my tree stand about 1430hrs after freshening up a couple of scent wicks. I had a spray bottle of buck urine in the tree stand, gave it a couple of sprays into the breeze and settled in. About 10 minutes later I looked up and what do you know, there's a nice 10 point buck standing under one of the scent wicks, stretching as far up as he could reach. Since I hadn't been paying attention, I had no idea how he got there or how long he had been there. I slowly stood up, drew back my knocked arrow, set the 30yd pin behind his shoulder, and let fly. Bad shot. I was nervous. The arrow hit him squarely in the right shoulder, but he went down anyway. As I watched him struggle to get up I realized he wasn't going to.

I climbed down out of the stand, walked over to him and sent another arrow through his heart. By this time the first arrow had broken off and was lying on the ground next to him. He expired about 45 seconds after the second shot. I cleaned him up and took him to the check station; he weighed in at 130 lbs field dressed.

I brought him home, skinned him out and hung him in the barn. The next day I brought him into the kitchen and started processing him. When I got to the shoulders, I found where the arrow entered the right shoulder, went through the bone and lodged in the left shoulder blade, that's why he stayed down. Apparently during his struggle to get up, he snapped the carbon arrow about 2 inches from the broadhead, and during his struggle he actually bent the Steel Force broadhead. I now have the antlers mounted with the broken arrow and broadhead. The cape is at the taxidermist's waiting for me to come up with the money to have him mounted. His raw score was 111 4/8", net score 108 4/8". Not bad for my first archery buck, and all with a borrowed bow and arrows.