Tammy Rodriguez's (Swatswife) First Deer

December 12, 2003

Tammy's Hunt Story

I got out to the lease about 4:30 (I had to wait for the babysitter to get home from school)
I got dressed and de-scented and headed down to the ground blind to spread the corn.
Got into the blind and all set up.. the video camera is peeking out a window and pointing
in the right direction and the waiting begins.. I never thought that I would learn patience from hunting,
I always thought I would learn it from my children. Anyway about 5ish a little yearling doe pops out
and begins to make all kinds of racket eating. She was all alone for about 20 minutes then I had a whole
slew of deer come in, at one point I counted 10 with the majority of them being yearlings and about
3 large does in the group. I thought I would wait for a while to see if a buck would come in with
all the does and no such luck so I narrowed my choices to the two biggest and oldest looking deer
and hoped for a shot. The two doe I chose to shoot are the biggest pains. They stomp and snort at the
slightest sound which happened to be the birds in the trees around me. Lucky for me the other deer just
ignore them now unless they run off which they did several times.
Well finally the opportunity arrives. She is broadside to me, I attach my release and slowly pull back my bow.
Just as I am pulling back she turns toward me just a little but not quite a quartering shot.
I get my anchor point the deer is in my sights right at about 18 yards and I put my pin nice and
tight behind the shoulder and WHAM! I connected!! However it was not a great connection because
nervous nelly turned and twisted just as I was releasing and I shot her pretty far back and it looks
like it hit her pretty far behind her ribcage. I am thinking and saying to myself Great.. I gut shot the deer,
nice way to screw that one up Tammy (nicely put here I was thinking/saying something else!!)
I watched my doe run about half way across the pasture and she stops and begins to walk really
slow and she is hobbling and limping along now, and to make matters worse there is another
doe that keeps following her and walking back and forth at the tree line where she goes in.
I at this point I begin to cry, I was so sad that I possibly wounded a deer again and I could see that
I had caused her some considerable amount of pain.
Now I begin to look for my arrow and I see it laying there on the ground and I sit for about 15 minutes
and then sneak out the back and head back to my car.
I drive down to the stand and take a look at my arrow about 1/4 of the arrow is gone and the a 1/4 of |
the part left on the ground is covered in bright red blood.
I talk to Donnie on the phone and the first thing out of my mouth is I quit. I am not cut out for hunting, |
I think I will just stick with 3-D shooting!! So I give him a recap of the evening.
(Oh yeah.. your wondering about the video? Lots of battery.. the tape ran out!!!!!!!!!!)
Donnie says to leave it alone for a while and we will look after his game.
So I head home broken hearted and feed my kids and wait for Donnie.
He gets home and we head back out there and begin to track her...
Well we find an incredible blood trail, possibly I got her liver too..
So we track and walk, track and walk, blood.. no blood.. blood... no blood.
Thank goodness my hubby is a blood hound ( I will let Donnie tell the tracking story)
We finally find her and the coyotes have already eaten her ear, nose and the butt end of her.
So in the picture you see the good side that they didn't get to!
I am still contemplating whether or not I want to hunt anymore but right now
I am thinking yes I want to keep it up.

So that is my story tears and all!

Donnie's Tracking Story

I had to work a basketball game last night while Tammy was a field. I got the call 6:45ish,
and she said, “I quit!” “I will just stick with 3-D shooting!!”  
“Hold on, tell me what happened”, I replied.  
Later she showed up at the school I was working at and got the skinny!
She told me what had happened and I figured by the time I got off, ate and changed that would
be plenty of time for the deer to lie down and be dead.  

So it was…we set out and about 9:30pm we arrive at the ranch.  I get my gear ready and I’m ready to track!
Oh, my gear is nothing special just a propane lantern, with some tin foil on the inside of the dome,
that on high is very bright and that won’t go dim or dead within 30 min to an hour.  
Tammy could tell be exactly where the deer went into the tree line so I stabbed the broken
arrow in the ground and across the pasture we went!  
I just began making sweeping a movement in a straight line towards the brush.
BAM, I got blood just a few feet from the tree line.
We enter the dark canopy of the 100 acre Woods…
”Blood, blood, blood, fence, blood, droplet, droplet, •••• where did it go.  

The blood trail ends 40 yards in the trees. I start to become the wounded deer and begin
looking for the easiest travel routes. Here is where I begin to get really technical…
after finding a good blood drop on the only white rock in the red/orange cedar needles.
The droplet was oblong shaped pointed on one end and round on the other,
classic low velocity blood splatter.
I show the droplet to Tammy and Shawn (a first year Bowhunter and a relative of the lady that lets us hunt).
I explained to them that the point of the droplet tells the direction that the deer is traveling.
As the deer is moving, the blood falls off the body, and it is traveling the same direction of the deer…
when the drop of blood hits a smooth surface it leaves the tear drop shape and the narrowest
point actually points to the direction the deer is traveling. It works!

I continue on and at times resort to crawling on my hands and knees,
looking at the underside of grass, dead limbs, etc.  We travel at least another 40 yards and the blood ends again.
Some stood at the last drop of blood and I walk out and in a semi-circle looking for the faintest and freshest sign of Tammy’s deer.
30- 40 more yards I find a drop of blood that was no bigger that the period on your keyboard…
”Needle in a hay stack”, I said.  But that was it.
I saw a fence 20 yards from where I was and decided to walk the fence line for more sign.
As I walked I along the fence like I came across one of the cedar posts that someone had placed a small deer
skull on top of. I then saw blood smeared on the top wire of the fence, just to the right of the skull.  
The doe had jumped the fence and left some evidence of its travel path.  

After crossing over we start again. Nothing! Nothing and Nothing!  
I silently asked the “Hunting Spirits” to give me some kind of sign that the deer is near.  
By this time it was 11:30pm. We had plenty of light but no more sign.
I wondered around a little looking for any trace of deer sign, but told Tammy that we gave it a heck of a run,
but it was not likely that we were going to produce her deer.
She asked if I thought it was dead. I felt strongly that it was.
Her comment basically was I guess it is going to be food for something else then.
I agreed and we began to get our bearing and head out of the woods.  
We hit a fence and began walking in the direction of the truck…dang, we looped back to the same spot where the deer jumped the fence, and there was the skull on the post.
I took that as a sign from the “Great Hunting Spirit” to keep looking.  
I blood hounded again…became the injured deer again…followed the path of least resistance.
BLOOD! It was a fairly good stream exiting the wound now.
The jump of the fence was just enough to open the wound to allow blood to free flow again.
As we continued on the brush got thicker and the blood trail was not as visible anymore.
I was able to locate a pinhead drop of blood again and followed a small path that
I assumed she would of traveled. The blood trail came and went several times but at this point
I was determined to find something!  

Crossing over a small old road and again into the dense brush…more blood and a large brush pile.
I looked up and shinned my lantern in front of me and there it was Tammy’s deer.
I sure wish I would of brought my GPS to track the deer and get a better idea of the
distance this critter had traveled. I would guess she went 300 yards plus!
I may have not known the distance but one thing I knew for sure is
that it was 12:25 in the morning!  

Now came the work of getting her out.  I was able to save the front half and backstraps and I finally hit the sack at 3:30 am, only to try and rise at the sound of the alarm at 6:00am.
Dang I am tired toady.