My son in law got his hunting license over the summer and purchased a self crank Wicked Ridge crossbow from Cabela's. The next day, Saturday, we met at my property to tune in the bow. Well, the self crank line snapped on the first crank. So back to Cabelas. I went with him this time mainly to watch my 2 grandkids while SIL dealt with customer service. Meanwhile, the kids had a blast in the store looking at tge fish in the tanks and all the animal mounts. Cabela's was great and replaced the bow with no questions asked.
So the next time we went to site in his bow, we went to Settlers place and he has the exact same bow. We watched the video on how to use the xbow crank system to make sure we didn't have a repeat. Found out, we did everything right the first time. After about 15 shots at the target, he was pretty confident and was ready to go.
Yesterday, we got set up at 4:30. I was in the treestand, and SIL was on the ground behind a pile of tree branches we were 20 yards apart.
It was slow and didn’t see anything until 6:11 when SIL saw a buck out in the big field about 80 yds out. My view was obstructed by tree branches. The buck was eventually joined by 6 doe.
The buck slowly walked down to us and was 45 yds out at 6:25. He slowly worked his way down to a point where he ended up being 10 yds in front of SIL. At first, I thought he was a 4 point. I snapped a picture and enlarged it and saw he had 3 up on the one side and told him he could shoot. 4 minutes before the end of legal light, he put a bolt through the chest and it was a complete pass through. The buck jumped , spun around and took off running like crazy 50 yds up to the woodline and entered the woods. Since it was 58 degrees out, we waited 25 minutes before starting our tracking.
We found the bolt, and there was no blood except on the fletching. We picked up blood about 10 yards from where the buck was hit. Blood was switching off between gushing and sporadic a bright red. After 30 minutes, we decided to back out and get the other flashlights we had in our trucks and wait for Settler to show up.
We picked up the blood trail and had to crawl through briar thickets, climb over huge deadfalls and had no clue where we were at. We eventually found the 7 point in the middle of 3 deadfalls.
Settler and SIL dragged the buck out while I found the path out of the woods. We arrived at the deer processer that was only about 2 miles from our hunt at 9:15.
So, needless to say, very proud of SIL. Think he may be a hunter for life after this. With 2 kids now - 6 and 4 year olds and my daughter due with another baby in January I doubt he will have an opportunity to get out again this season.
A big shout out to Settler for all his help.
So the next time we went to site in his bow, we went to Settlers place and he has the exact same bow. We watched the video on how to use the xbow crank system to make sure we didn't have a repeat. Found out, we did everything right the first time. After about 15 shots at the target, he was pretty confident and was ready to go.
Yesterday, we got set up at 4:30. I was in the treestand, and SIL was on the ground behind a pile of tree branches we were 20 yards apart.
It was slow and didn’t see anything until 6:11 when SIL saw a buck out in the big field about 80 yds out. My view was obstructed by tree branches. The buck was eventually joined by 6 doe.
The buck slowly walked down to us and was 45 yds out at 6:25. He slowly worked his way down to a point where he ended up being 10 yds in front of SIL. At first, I thought he was a 4 point. I snapped a picture and enlarged it and saw he had 3 up on the one side and told him he could shoot. 4 minutes before the end of legal light, he put a bolt through the chest and it was a complete pass through. The buck jumped , spun around and took off running like crazy 50 yds up to the woodline and entered the woods. Since it was 58 degrees out, we waited 25 minutes before starting our tracking.
We found the bolt, and there was no blood except on the fletching. We picked up blood about 10 yards from where the buck was hit. Blood was switching off between gushing and sporadic a bright red. After 30 minutes, we decided to back out and get the other flashlights we had in our trucks and wait for Settler to show up.
We picked up the blood trail and had to crawl through briar thickets, climb over huge deadfalls and had no clue where we were at. We eventually found the 7 point in the middle of 3 deadfalls.
Settler and SIL dragged the buck out while I found the path out of the woods. We arrived at the deer processer that was only about 2 miles from our hunt at 9:15.
So, needless to say, very proud of SIL. Think he may be a hunter for life after this. With 2 kids now - 6 and 4 year olds and my daughter due with another baby in January I doubt he will have an opportunity to get out again this season.
A big shout out to Settler for all his help.
