Bow hunting

This past weekend was the opening for bow season and of course Colton was excited as ever to go.  He really wanted me to go with him because he got a new pop up blind where you can sit like 20 yards away from the deer and it's really exciting to watch them that close.  I was excited to go of course because I've never bow hunted, my dad and my brother's have and Colton just recently got into it and I grew up rifle hunting but never with a bow so I wanted to see how it was done.  I WAS NOT however excited about getting up that early on a Saturday.  Colton told my dad about a week ago that I was going with him and my dad was like "nah, you don't want her to go she'll just be noisy and she'll want to leave early."  He jokingly told Colton that a way for him to get me to not want to go was to rub some skunk urine all over him and Colton said "I really don't think that would bother her" and my dad said "ya, you're probably right."

My dad was the one I always went hunting with since I was like 6 or 7 and yes, for a kid that young it's hard to keep quiet and still for hours at a time so it was probably more of a hassle for him to take me, but I always had fun and then when my dad bought me my own rifle I would go by myself or with Colton.  So needless to say hunting and killing a deer is nothing new to me.  Well this experience was WAY different.  We get into the blind about 6:15 a.m. and the feeder went off about 6:45, and at about 7 a doe walks out and I told him to shoot her and then a few minutes later her baby walks out and we both just look at each other and shake our heads.  Well a few minutes go by and sometimes I think mine and Colton's brains are hardwired together because almost at the same time we agree that the baby is almost as big as the doe and it will be completely fine by itself.  I know this sounds brutal and cold-hearted but we were both raised that we shoot deer to feed our family.  God put every animal on this earth for a purpose and a deer's purpose is to feed us, just like a cow!  So about 7:30 Colton draws back and shoots her, I wish I could erase the next 45 minutes out of my head forever.  It was AWFUL.  I'm used to hunting with a rifle where when you shoot them they instantly go down and die.  Well he shot too high and got her in the spine and she went down and started kicking around on the ground, at this time I turn my head and cover my eyes and beg him to shoot her again to put her out of her misery.  Let me remind you that we are only 10 yards away from her.  So she CRAWLS into the brush right in front of us and we can hear her kicking around and I just start crying!  I felt like an idiot but I think it was just the shock of the entire situation.  Yes, I'm used to seeing animals die for a purpose but I absolutely don't like to see or hear an animal suffer.  Colton starts laughing at me and hugs me and tells me that with a bow that's almost always normal, that they usually run off first and then go off and die and you then have to track them, he said "sorry, they usually don't do that!" (we didn't know he shot her too high at this point).  Well 45 minutes go by and we can STILL hear her!  We didn't get out right away because my dad was hunting in an oats patch about 100 yards behind us and we didn't want to disturb him.  So we kept watching for when he got down to finally get out and then Colton finally went and put her out of her misery.  I told him I probably wouldn't mind going again now that I know what to expect, but my first bow hunting experience is one that I will unfortunately never forget.