"After watching the first 2 ½ quarters of the Egg Bowl in the lodge at Magna Vista Plantation I left to hunt arriving on my stand at approximately 2:15pm. I was hunting in a lock-on along a 25 foot wide ditch filled with water that is lined with mature acorn trees. I knew there was a couple of nice bucks in the area and anticipated a good hunt. As the afternoon progressed I watched numerous deer including 5 young rack bucks walking by my stand feeding on acorns. Around 5:00pm I spotted a large deer across the ditch and approximately 60-70 yards to the left of my stand. I had no trouble recognizing him as a mature deer. He fed on acorns for over 15 minutes in that location and then slowly began making his way in my direction. I picked an opening where I was hoping to stop him and as he approached it I drew my bow and grunted. But, for whatever reason, he ignored me and kept walking to an acorn tree directly behind me, still on the opposite side of the water. He walked back and forth eating always keeping the tree between us. I was getting close to overload. It was getting dark and no matter what I tried I couldn’t pick a shot. The problem was that he was dead behind me and I was not only trying to shoot around the tree I was in while avoiding the metal stick ladder, but there were only a couple of small openings available to shoot through. I think I drew back and let off around six different times trying to get a shot. By this point it was really starting to get dark. He finally came into one of the small openings and stopped. Stepping as far back on my stand as possible, I drew placing my arrow between my tree and the stick ladder. I knew there was a good possibility of my bow hitting and being damaged by the metal ladder and I can remember telling myself if I could take this deer I would just buy a new bow if mine was torn up. When I touched off my release my Hoyt V-Tec bow (later I found it was the top cam) hit the metal touching off what sounded like a large bell ringing. But, all I could think about was the deer. I was not able to follow the flight of my arrow and with all the noise from the collision of bow and ladder I couldn’t hear if it hit home or not. But from the reaction of the buck I thought he had been hit. I watched him run into a stand of young cottonwoods and listened to him as he ran. I realized he didn’t run far which was a good sign. Then I looked at my bow. The string was hanging limp and I really didn’t know just how bad it was damaged. I left the tree and the area quickly and headed back to the lodge. When I arrived I met my son, brother, dad, and a couple of others. After telling them the story we decided that I would return to the stand just to see if we could spot my arrow and confirm a hit. About 1 ¼ hours after my shot we went back and quickly located blood, lots of it. I know I was pushing it a little but with the amount of blood we were seeing I decided to follow the blood trail ( a little ways at least). After about 50 yards we were still seeing lots of blood. Another 25-30 yards and we stopped and looked around shining the light. About 20 yards from where we stood we saw him and he saw us. The big buck had bedded up, obviously hurt, but alive enough to raise his head to check us out. We quietly and quickly backed out trying not to bump him and decided to wait until the next morning. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I couldn’t have slept more than 3 hours that night wondering if I had done the right thing. As it turns out, it was exactly the right thing to do. We went back just after daylight the following day and there he lay dead in the same spot from which he watched us the night before".
Congratulations Gary on taking a fine mature whitetail and thanks for sharing it with our bowhunting community.
(Gary's Equipment and additional harvest data are listed below.
1. Full Name of the Bowhunter. Gary Blakeney
2. Hometown of the Bowhunter. Brandon, MS
3. Date of harvest Saturday, November 28, 2009
4. Animal Harvested - Whitetail
5. Location of the harvest Magna Vista Plantation, Issaquena County, MS
6. Evening bowhunt
7. Shot distance-32 yards
8. Distance animal traveled. Approximately 85 yards
9. Number of points- 10 points
10. Interior Spread of Antlers-20” spread
11. Animal age and live weight 5 !/2 years…215 pounds
12. Shot placement-lung
13. Estimated P&Y Green score-154 4/8’s
14. Equipment used. Hoyt V-Tec, Bemon shaft, 110 grain Montec fixed head
