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Longbow guy here. It all added up today except for my aim.
>buck I've been seeing made the exact route I've seen him do every day. He comes from the woods, walks up a rise to the right of the mound in pic related, walks in front of the mound to the left along the path leading to a field before looping back behind where I sat and hitting the gourd and tomato vines growing wild there.
Unfortunately it was the literal last minute of legal shooting, stupid dark, and misting out. Visibility was incredibly shit and I judged him further out than he was (he was maybe 10-15 yards... embarrassingly close) and ended up putting the arrow 6-12" above where he was standing. He showed up like a ghost when I was reaching for my quiver to pack up and go home... I had to slow-motion re-nock my arrow and draw while he was watching me. The cheeky fucker is so stupid too. He jumped at the noise and ran maybe fifteen yards before looking backwards and just walking the way he was walking. I let him get some space before grabbing my arrow and I never heard him run off despite him being maybe 50 feet off. Gotta love those secret spots... no way he'd be this cool somewhere more pressured.
I'll be heading back out tomorrow afternoon and setting up in the woods he comes from instead of on this hill. While I know for certain he's gonna come back up to this same exact rise, I need to be seeing him closer to his bed before it gets pitch black out.
Any advice on spotting his most recent trail, or if I should wait a couple days or so if I did spook him? I last saw him at this rise about five days ago when I bumped him while I was walking towards that same path to get to my car. Parked somewhere else this time around obviously. I don't think he'll stay away from this area because there's still a good bit of browse he hasn't gotten to chewing on yet. Motherfucker picked clean the tomato vine I was foraging and shat all over it too.