Stopping a moving deer with a bleat or grunt just before the shot is really easy to do and a good idea especially if the deer is moving through cover.
Opening morning Oct 1st 2021 in southern MI, a friend of mine is in a pin oak tree with his tree saddle overlooking a heavy deer trail that crosses a railroad track.
Even though the temperature was above normal, he decided to hunt this morning because this has always been a great early season spot.
It didn’t take long after daybreak, he had deer under the oak trees sucking up the acorns. After several minutes they started crossing the tracks heading back to bedding. There was a tall 8 pt, a wide 8 and some young bucks.
Since last hunting season, some of his shooting lanes got smaller due the summer growth, and he just wasn’t able to get off a clear shot.
So after all the deer moved off to bed, he got down and grabbed his pole saw to open up his shooting lanes.
Later that afternoon he returned to the big oak with his tree saddle to catch these bucks coming back across the tracks from bedding. Even though the temps were warm, it’s a short easy walk to the tree and the wind was still in his favor.
With about a half hour of daylight left, he saw them coming down the same trail to the tracks. He got his camera moved into place for the shot
A small buck led the way, like they normally do. Behind him came the tall 8 pt.
Before the buck entered the shooting lane, he was already at full draw. He settled on the bucks vitals as he walked through the opening and touched off the arrow.
The first thing he saw was the spark from the 250gr single bevel Cutthroat broadhead hitting the stone on the railroad bed. He was sure it was a clean miss.
Meanwhile a smaller 8 pt on the other side of the tracks just stood there wondering what just happened. My friend has one of the quietest bows I‘ve ever heard. It doesn’t sound like it in the video because it’s only a foot away from the camera.
Once all the deer just walked off, he got down to look for the arrow and found the fletchings covered in blood. So now he’s not sure what happened.
He went home to review the footage on his laptop but he’s still not sure where the arrow hit the deer. So the next morning we go out with another hunting buddy to review the crime scene and look for a blood trail.
About 30 yds down the trail we find some blood and it’s pretty consistent for about 80 yards. Then it peters out to where he laid down but there wasn’t much blood in the bed. And that’s the last blood we found. No blood trail leaving the bed after searching with 3 guys for over an hour.
So if we go back to the shot the night before, you’ll notice that my buddy did not stop the buck with a bleat. He simply followed the buck with his top pin on the buck’s vitals and touched off the trigger. I was really surprised he made a bad hit like that at close range because he’s always been a great shot out to 30+ yards.
So while slowing the footage down to watch the arrow, we noticed it hit a bare branch. You can see the branch flicker at the sound of the bow going off. That caused the arrow to deflect down to the buck’s leg.
My buddy admitted he should have stopped him with a simple bleat. Because when you’re trying to shoot a moving deer though a shooting lane, you run the risk of not seeing the backside of the shot window because you’re focusing on keeping the pin on the vitals, and then you run out of room for the arrow to get through.
Now if the buck is already on high alert, then stopping him with a bleat can be risky especially if it’s a long shot over 30 yards. He might jump the string or take off running, causing another bad hit. But if he’s on high alert at close range, you have to be quick with your bleat/shot sequence.
I find that’s more common on public land as the season moves along and bucks become more pressured. But in this case, it was opening day and the bucks had no clue hunters were in the woods yet, so a simple bleat would have done the trick.
If you haven’t tried it yet, just practice making a bleat at full draw while shooting at your archery targets.
One other thing my buddy decided to do was go out and get a set of lighted nocks. They can really help you know where you hit an animal which will help to let you know how long you have to wait before taking up the blood trail.
So good hunting out there this season, give this video a thumbs up if you got anything out of it, subscribe for more content coming up, and I’ll see you with the next video.
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Randy VanderVeen
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