Earlier I was cutting up an old fallen tree trunk using my chainsaw. I quit for the day when I ran out of gas. Even though I was in the north pasture and Kelly was hunting in the south pasture I didn't want to disrupt his hunting due to the loud noise the chainsaw made.
I was trimming some lower dead tree branches on a nearby tree with a pole saw when I heard the loud boom from his rifle. Only one shot. Then nothing. Nor did I see Kelly come out to get his pickup. I thought he may have missed for once.
It was quite a bit later, and getting fairly dark, when he finally showed up. He said thought he had hit a buck, but it didn't go down right away. The other years when he shot deer they went down near where he shot them. He said he was only 20 ft away when he shot and couldn't believe he had missed. Tonight he thought he saw blood near the deer's leg but the buck went back to the river and crossed over to the island.
He waited as chasing a wounded deer just gets their adrenaline pumping and they run further. He hadn't been on the island yet so he came back to get me. He also didn't have a flashlight with him and I didn't have a very large one. He went over to his parents house and got a couple of lights and then I joined him to search for the deer.
I got my rubber overshoes as we had to cross the river. By now it was definitely dark.
Kelly showed me where he shot the deer and we searched for blood in the grass but found none. We traced its trail back to the river and still no blood.
The deer crossed the river where the east and main channel split. I led Kelly to the middle of the east channel where the water level is low and most of the gravel stream bed was exposed. The water only went half way up my boots as I crossed. Kelly crossed in his regular boots. Quickly as they were not waterproof.
The island is honeycombed with trails the cattle use. I led Kelly back to where he said the deer had crossed. I could see where the deer had dug into the moist ground as it climbed the bank, but no blood. Kelly kept saying he thought he had hit the deer. He was sure it was limping when it ran off. We searched the trails and was in the mid point between the channels when he found blood on the grass and leaves.
We followed the spots of blood and a short distance away found the buck laying down against a tree. We approached carefully. He was dead. It looked like after he got back to the island he found a "hidey spot" and laid down to rest, then passed away.
We flipped the buck over back and forth before we found the small exit wound. It was in the shoulder above its right leg. That explained the limping Kelly saw.
We gutted and cleaned the deer there. Kelly saved the heart and liver for his dad who really enjoys eating them. The bullet may have hit a lung as the heart was not hit. The deer didn't lose much blood which explained why the blood trail was hard to find. After the guts were removed we had to flip the deer to dump a large pool of blood out.
The antlers were 5 prongs on one side and six on the other. A nice rack. A good sized buck also. Kelly said the buck crossed the river on the trail of a doe that passed by Kelly's tree stand earlier. Just another male who got careless and in trouble because he had sex on his brain.
We drug the buck to the place where it had crossed the river. Kelly tossed the heart and liver across the river and they landed where the river bank and river met and did not "break" or get damaged from the toss. He then drug the buck across the river. After he crossed I took the one flashlight and went back and crossed the river where we had originally crossed it.
By the time we had drug the buck up to the higher river bank were his pickup was parked we were both getting tired. We didn't have far to drag it. I can't imagine hunters having to drag a deer a mile or two out of the woods. With some effort we got the deer into his pickup bed.
One less deer to eat my garden, shrubs, and trees.
This was not the buck Kelly videotaped the other night. And he said there were several other smaller bucks roaming around. With all the does there will be plenty of deer next year. 
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