The Black Lab Buck

After years of chasing waterfowl and whitetails with firearms, this season I decided to get into archery hunting. Instead of just killing a deer with the bow, I decided to make my hunts even more challenging by filming them. My good friend, Jason Oswald, has been generous enough to offer his time and efforts to film my hunts. On the way, he has also become addicted to bow hunting lifestyle. This was our first season of hunting from elevated stands and it has been exciting. Seeing deer from above while they have no idea you are there is a thrill. I arrowed my first deer a few weeks ago. One of the cool things about getting into archery hunting is the welcome I have received from fellow hunters. Dozens of emails flooded my inbox after releasing the video of my hunt. The following message is from my friend, Matt Appel. After a hearty congrats, he shared the story of his most recent hunt. Matt is a new daddy this year. Check out the photo at the end of the story.

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I curbed my addiction this year by taking a buck I normally would of passed up, but it was on public land, the first time into the area, and it was a fun hunt. I got in my stand, watched a storm front move in, put up my umbrella, sat there and thought “well I'm not going to see anything this morning.” Luckily, the front passed with out a drop of rain. Then I heard some leaves kicking up and looked up to see the buck walking right from where I had walked in 45 minutes before. I looked behind him as he got to 30 yards for a bigger buck, drew, looked behind him again, then settled on him as he passed broadside at 18 yards and figured I would spend some more time with the family this year, then released.

The arrow hit hard and disappeared while the buck bolted out of the woods and into a prairie grass field. As I was getting down from my stand I had a black lab come running in from where the deer went. I looked up to see a pheasant hunter walk by the little wood lot I was in. I hollered over to see if he had seen a deer in the direction he came from. He said “yeah, he's laying right over there!” He walked me over and showed me the deer. He said he tried to stay away from the woods he thought I was in. I told him not to worry, “I was bird hunting out here 2 days ago!” He congratulated me and continued on his way.

While getting my tag out for the buck, I looked up through the prairie grass, and here came another buck walking up on me. He looked me up and down, and just turned and walked in the same direction the pheasant hunter had walked 15 minutes before. I walked my stuff back to my truck, as the pheasant hunter finished up his hunt and managed a nice ring neck. I stripped off my long johns and headed back to the deer. After a 30 minute drag, I had him loaded up and was home 10 minutes later for a nice little breakfast. After 3 years of losing two wallhangers to misplaced shots, and not drawing on one last year, it was very gratifying to tag a 125 lb buck. - Matt Appel, Wisconsin Deer Hunter