Page 83 - ODUMar-Apr2019

The shot opportunity presented itself as Snowflake made his way across a creek bottom one very windy

evening. Ryan, who was running a video camera to film the hunt, was forced to “bleat” at Snowflake
three different times before being heard. The wide-racked 10-pointer stopped broadside and snapped
his head at us, obviously on high alert. My arrow was quickly on its way and the shot felt good!

Unfortunately, the arrow found the back edge of Snowflake’s shoulder blade. To shorten the story, we
observed Snowflake alive a couple days later. Upon reviewing the video footage of the shot, it was plain
to see that, just as the arrow enters the video frame near the deer, he gathers himself to run. That
gathering movement brought his shoulder blade back and down, covering a portion of his vitals, the

spot my arrow hit!

A veteran archery hunter with dozens of trophies on his wall was in camp and saw the footage. I’ll
remember his sage advice. “Stay back a few inches from that shoulder, then you’ve got some margin
for error forward,” he advised. “If you hit back, maybe the liver, you still usually have a lethal shot.”

Be sure?

I sat in the rain along a wooded lake shore a month later during the Minnesota rut. With just minutes of
legal shooting light left that evening, a big-bodied buck came down a little used trail (as the big boys
often do) toward me.

Impressed by his body size, I took a quick look at his antlers and determined him to be a shooter.
Remembering Snowflake, I settled my pin back of his shoulder.

The shot felt good, and the deer mule-kicked and ran off. Rain and darkness forced me to delay my
search until the next morning. The search was short, but I was a bit disappointed in the results.