Jarrett's First Buck - Ohio
Jarrett with his first Buck.
Jarrett & his dad.
Hunter: Jarrett Cunningham
Cameraman: David Wozniak
On October 2, 2008, I went crossbow hunting for whitetail deer with my Dad. We went to our favorite spot and climbed into our Ameristep ground blind. My good friend, David Wozniak came along to film the hunt for Archer’s Choice.
It was a cloudy evening and we hoped the deer would move early and our planning paid off. The first deer showed up at 5:15 p.m. It was a nice doe that fed into the field just out of bow range. We watched her for about 30 minutes until she fed over the hill and out of sight.
I was getting hungry, so my Dad opened up a snack for me. As I was eating my lucky Sweet and Salty bar, a mature doe began feeding into the other side of the field behind us. She was heading right for our blind—game on! Suddenly, as if he had appeared out of thin air, a nice 8-point buck was heading right towards the doe. I already had the doe in the scope of my TenPoint crossbow, and had to switch positions to take aim on the buck. I quickly found the deer in my scope and waited for my Dad to give the “ok” to shoot.
Whack!!! The buck heel kicked and bolted only 30 yards to the field edge and stood there looking around for a couple of minutes. When we started to walk toward him, his back was humped up and he acted like he was really, really hurt. My Dad said it looked like a great shot, but it may have been back just a little bit, so we thought we better get out of there and give him plenty of time to go lay down.
After returning home, we reviewed the footage of the shot. From one angle it looked perfect, but from another, it looked a little bit back. We decided to give the buck at least a couple of hours before attempting to track him. My Dad’s good friend Dave Compher came with us to help us track my buck. We immediately found blood at the field edge and knew this was a good sign. As we started into the woods, the buck was laying on an old logging road, 35-yards away—yes, DEER DOWN—my first bow kill, and a BUCK!!! We were only about 80-90 yards away from the blind, my Spitfire broadhead did the job!
Thank you Woz for filming my first kill and thank you Dave, for helping us track and drag my buck out.