It's probably about that time for deer season to open in some states, so here is a thread to post photos of the deer taken during the 2009-2010 deer season. Good luck, guys and gals.

Please post all photos of deer taken in previous seasons in the other dedicated threads, and NOT in this one. Thanks.

They're reserving a spot to post photos of DEAD deer.

Good job, guys.

My guess is that they want their deer photos on page 1. Me? I'll just put mine wherever the thread is at the time.

Indiana's archery season opened today, and I worked until 3:30 PM as usual. I arrived at my hunting location, suited up, and left my vehicle at 4:02 PM. I walked down over the wooded ridge, selected a tree for my climbing stand, and then proceeded on down the hill to trim a couple of low-lying saplings. I then climbed the tree, attached my safety harness, put on my gloves, ranged a few landmarks, and pulled my bow up. I then nocked an arrow, and sat back.

A few minutes later, I noticed a mature doe and her offspring 25 yards below me on the ridge next to a small stream. The doe acted nervous, then started walking up the hill towards me. Due to the safety harness, I could not shoot her off to my left without turning a complete rotation, so I had no choice but to do so, which meant turning my back on her as she's walking towards me. I managed to turn around okay, then once she got up alongside me, I pulled my head back behind the trunk of the tree. I could see her ear, and tell that she was looking right at me. After a few tense moments, she continued her stiff-legged walk up the hill.  

She paused in a quartering away position about 20 yards away. I drew, anchored, and placed the pin back a little on her torso, so that I was aimed at her opposite foreleg. The arrow struck with a resounding crack, and she sprinted off, with her offspring in tow. A glance at my watch indicated 4:32 PM –– I'd left my vehicle exactly 30 minutes before! I was unsure of the shot after watching her run out of sight up the other ridge. I sat there a few moments, then silently climbed down. I found my blood-covered arrow lying on the ground. For a second, I wondered if maybe it had bounced out instead of passing through, since it wasn't stuck in the ground. There was a lot of blood at the shot location, but with my colorblindness, I couldn't discern a bloodtrail. I called my brother, and he and a friend drove the Polaris Ranger right to my stand. He also brought along his dog, which is some sort of hound mix.

While we were looking at first blood, the dog started smelling around, and took of in the general direction the deer had went. For some reason, I didn't think that the doe had went through where the dog was messing around, but at my brother's insistence, we decided to check it out. Walking up the trail that the dog had just climbed, I saw decent amounts of blood pooled on leaves.  I then noticed the dog messing around in the undergrowth, and my brother said, "There's your deer right next to Lucky." Sure enough, that dog had went right to it. What's funny is that we tried him on a bloodtrail last year, and he showed zero interest in it.    

The arrow's entrance was back on the left side, center-punched the liver, passed through the lungs, and exited the right side a few inches behind the foreleg. No damage to the paunch at all, which was a good thing, as I thought that I may have clipped it due to the shot angle. The Rage 2-blade broadhead left a huge slit through both sides of the doe and the liver.

If you hit her back far enough to gut shoot her, there is zero doubt that she'll die. All gut-shot deer die –– it may take as long as 24-48 hours though (usually quicker.) If you hit her a little more forward than the guts, you probably got a liver hit, which should prove to be fatal within a few hours tops. Go back and look for her later today and you should find her, assuming you didn't run her into the next county earlier. Good luck.