The photos shown here were posted recently on the Seek One Productions Facebook page. The team from Seek One has been producing outstanding whitetail bowhunting videos on its YouTube channel for years, and they have a massive following (855k YouTube subscribers; 172 videos at the time of this writing).
This is the text that Seek One posted with the pics: “The moment it all came together yesterday on public land. Spot and stalk in the rain, and waited on him for 2 hours to stand up out of his bed. Posting pics and story later, but had to share this sequence. Still feels unreal.”
The moisture exploding into the air upon release of the string shows the incredible power of a modern compound bow. These conditions also make it easy to track the arrow as it races toward the now-standing whitetail. As the broadhead impacts the deer’s wet hide, you see another spray of water.
The range isn’t provided in the Facebook post, but I suspect it’s a bit farther than it looks. (A zoom lens compresses the scene.) This is just a guess, but what looks to be a 15-yard shot is probably closer to 30.
Look carefully and you’ll notice that even though the buck appears to be relaxed, it still reacts to the sound of the bow firing and perhaps the arrow in flight. You can see proof of this "string-jumping" by paying attention to the buck’s head position. At the shot, the buck’s rack is framed against a background cedar tree. As the arrow approaches the deer, the buck begins to drop, preparing to flee. At broadhead impact, the buck has dropped close to 6 inches; the rack is no longer framed by the cedar.
I did a little math in case you’re curious. Let’s assume the bowhunter was shooting an arrow at 300 fps, which is a very reasonable guess. (The shooter is likely using a Mathews LIFT X set at 70 pounds or more; Mathews Archery is the bow sponsor for Seek One Productions.) Let’s also assume the range is 30 yards (90 feet). That means the arrow would take only .3 seconds to travel from the bow to the deer.
In other words, this buck is able to hear the bow or arrow, or see something strange, or all of these things, and still drop 6 inches in only one-third of a second. Crazy! It serves as a good reminder to aim for the lower third of an animal.
Thanks to Seek One Productions for posting these amazing — and informative — photos. I look forward to seeing the video!
