Kevlar Deer

One good thing about going to school in central Florida is that the deer season opens much sooner than back in the panhandle. This year, archery season opened in mid-August. I did a bit of scouting and found that Lochloosa WMA was only about a 30 minute drive from my house and didn't require a quota (since I missed the drawing this year).

On a Thursday evening I drove out to the WMA and scouted/hunted. I found very little deer sign and spooked a bunch of turkeys while driving down one of the roads. I was without a tree stand since I had left it back in Pensacola so I was forced to hunt from the ground.

I finally found an area that had a few scrapes so I sat beneath an old oak and waited until dark. The area that I was in an oak hammock and the dry leaves made walking anything but quiet. Therefore, I wasn't particularly surprised when I heard something moving my direction about 80 yards through the woods. I readied myself and out popped a turkey at about 40 yards. Then another...and another...and another. I waited until the last one was out moving through the clearing and drew back on my bow. I released the arrow and...well...flat out missed. I shot a few inches low and since I was already on the ground, the arrow dug into the ground short of its target. The turkeys all flushed and I counted 7 total.

I then heard more leaf crunching and almost immediately, a button-buck stepped out at about 30 yards. Even if I had wanted to shoot it, I couldn't since I had no arrow nocked. The buck stared at me for close to a minute as I tried to make myself resemble a lumpy tree and he finally spooked.

A few days later I found myself back in the same area. To my dismay, I walked in on another hunter near where I had shot at the turkeys. I decided to walk (forever) down a different road and finally found myself in a cypress swamp. It was getting late in the afternoon so I decided to sit under a tree and wait until dusk. My watch read 4:00 and I told myself I'd wait until 6:45 before I left. I made it to about 6:00. I had decided that if I sat there another minute I would be nothing more than a shriveled husk of a hunter due to blood loss from mosquitoes. Besides, I hadn't seen anything the whole time I was sitting there. I nocked my arrow, grabbed my things, stood up, and saw a doe at 20 yards.

I immediately ducked back down and drew out an arrow. I waited for a clear shot and the doe began to move off. I knew that if I didn't follow, I'd never have a shot. I decided to start stalking her and soon found a small opening that offered about a 40 yard shot. I let the arrow go and watched it go right where it belonged. However, upon hitting the deer, it sounded like my arrow hit a tree.

She tore up a hill, crashed through head high palmettos, and then did something I wasn't expecting. She blew at me and then ran further.

I got up and started looking for my arrow. When I finally found it, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. The arrow had indeed hit the deer. There was blood and hair covering the broadhead. But just the broadhead. No other part of the arrow had any sign of passing through the deer. I searched for the deer for over an hour and well into night fall with no sign. Not a drop of blood could be found.

After talking to my dad, we came to conclusion: my arrow had bounced off the deer. I had personally never heard of such a thing and was so upset at the time that I didn't even want to think about it. After getting home and calming down, I did some research and found that it is possible to hit a deer with an arrow and have it bounce off. I read an article of a hunter in Texas that shot a buck and the arrow hit squarely in the shoulder blade, causing the arrow to ricochet off. The only thing that I can imagine is that this is what happened to that doe. It's rather hard to believe, but I honestly can't make this stuff up.

I'll just be sure to sharpen my broadheads before I shoot at any more Kevlar toting Lochloosa deer.

End of an internship

Well, that's about it for my summer internship with FWC at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area. I can't even begin to describe how much experience I gained in the 3 short months that I worked there. It was great to finally get an idea of the kind of work environment I might end up in with my school major.

My last day of work had me searching for more Kogon grass. I took that opportunity to drive out to an area I'd never been to. I drove the four wheeler out to the far side of lake Jackson for some pictures. I took a short break out there, admired the view, and then drove back to the office for the last time. I really enjoyed the internship as a whole and I don't regret a second of my summer.

Trip up the fire tower

The office out at Three Lakes WMA has a fire tower behind it and it wasn't until I had to take pictures from the top of it that I realized I'd never been up. From below, it doesn't look THAT high, but after climbing flight after flight of stairs, I realized I was way up there.
Whoever designed the door on tower failed. It opens from the bottom like a hatch. The problem is that this hatch swings into the room and the stairs run directly into the wall. This means that in order to climb inside, one has to climb to the top of the stairs, spin around in a circle, and leap over the hatch to the safety of the room floor. The picture below is a view of the hatch from above. Note that the green vegetation is the top of 60+ ft. oak trees. The room didn't have much inside. There were two chairs, an old radio, a pair of binoculars, and a table with a compass on it.

It was rather roomy for being a big wooden box sitting on top of a steel tower. The only thing unsettling was the fact that I had chosen a windy day to climb up. Every time a gust of wind hit the room, the entire thing would vibrate and an eerie "whoosh" sound could be heard all around. It only took me a few minutes to take the pictures I needed, and I got a chance to have a bird's eye view of the entire surrounding area. I never realized how far one could see out of those fire towers and I'm betting it would be fairly easy to actually spot a wild fire.The climb down was uneventful, but I did manage to take a few pictures of the view straight down the stairs. The whole fire tower experience is certainly not for someone who's afraid of heights.