Seeing as how this is a hunting focused site, I thought I would actually post up something about some actual hunting, successful hunting at that! Since the weather is finally starting to come around this might whet all you's appetites. First the story.
In the early bow and gun seasons I like to hang out at the edge of fields I have permission to hunt on. The deer are usually fairly calm and still in their summer patterns. I had been at this particular location about 4 times already this season. Each time I had seen a bunch of young bucks, but nothing too big showed itself, so I let the little ones live on. Tonight, the weather was grey and threatening rain, so I figured the deer would make a good appearance.
I hiked into the field and set up inside some tall grass with some trees behind me for camouflage. I had a view of the upper alfalfa field to my left, and the lower grass field to my right. Previous hunting trips told me the deer came out to the alfalfa first. I sat down on my little folding chair, laid my rifle in my lap, put my trigger stick against my knee, and pulled out my phone to check the time, 6:04pm. To kill time and keep still I will do some reading on my phone or play solitaire. Every few minutes I will look around to see if anything came out. After just a few minutes I could hear some leaves crunching behind me, the distinctive sound of a carefully approaching deer. I craned my neck around to get a look, but the bush was too dense to see anything.
I returned my attention to my phone knowing sooner or later some deer will show themselves. Pretty soon I saw movement off to my left up the hill, it was a deer. A quick look through the binos confirmed it was a small 4x4 I had already seen and passed on a number of times already. More movement, and second deer, a third, a fourth. One was a doe, another a small 2 point, and the other a slightly larger 4x4 I had not seen before. More movement, another small 2-point, this one had a limp. I could see he had a wound of some kind lower down on his left front leg. Another minute passed and another doe appeared. I glanced at my phone, 6:14pm. These deer came out fast and started chowing down hard, barely taking any time to look around.
I studied the deer for awhile and started comparing the two 4x4's. The new one was a bit bigger and had a darker rack, the smaller one was kinda bleached. I started having thoughts about shooting the new 4-point. Usually I try to hold out for a much larger deer. But this year I have a moose draw for Oct that I would like to dedicate some time to, so getting a white tail tag cut early would free up alot of my schedule. Not to mention give me more time to seek out and wack one of the two big mulies I saw last year AFTER I had already filled my mule tag. PLUS, my wife and kids will enjoy having me home more often this fall. I looked down to my right to see if any deer had appeared there, nada. While I was looking that way, the two 4-points had a little sparing match. I turned back to see them but they were already finished. I said to myself, "Self, if your going to do this, you had better do it now while there is still about an hour of light left".
So, I grabbed my trigger stick and carefully set it up. I opened up the scope covers on the rifle, clicked the safety off, and set my gun on the stick. I acquired my target. The deer were browsing around and a doe walked behind the buck I was looking at. Not a good time to shoot, so I waited. Once she cleared out, he was standing all wrong. I knew sooner or later he would offer up a nice broadside shot. Then he moved to the left, but I now had a small tree blocking my shot. Wait some more. Then I heard more crunching/rustling to my left again. Thinking it might be another deer I waited some more. Alas, it was just a squirrel moving through the trees in my direction. And wouldn't you know it, the dang squirrel parked himself almost directly above me and started chattering. The deer all looked in my direction, but they didn't seem too concerned. Despite the noisy rodent, the deer went back to feeding. Finally the buck moved back into the clear and stopped, offering up a nice broadside shot at about 80 yards. I leveled the crosshairs on his lungs and worked the trigger. Boom! All the deer started to scatter. I could see a 6 foot plume of dust shoot out of the earth behind the buck. The buck started off towards the middle of the field and then turned up and away from me, he looked hurt bad, but was moving at a pretty good speed. I did not want to have to track him into the bush so I got up to my feet, chambered a fresh round, found him in the scope again and let a second shot fly. Boom! He was down now. Ten seconds later he ceased to be. I ranged him again and he was down at 91 yards. A quick check of the time, 6:21pm.
I grabbed my chair and trigger stick and hiked up to him. Upon confirming death, I hiked back to my vehicle and drove it to the edge of the field. The farmer doesn't like my driving on the field, so I had about a 100 yard clear, somewhat uphill drag. I got the buck to the vehicle and started to work. I managed to get him field dressed and loaded with some light to spare. I called my dad and asked if I could hang the deer in his garage since mine was a little cluttered, lol. I showed up at dad's place and we quickly got him hanging. We used the compressed air trick before we starting skinning, it sure made skinning alot faster and easier. As it turns out, my first shot was a perfect double lung shot, taking out both of the 4th ribs from the back. There was no other wound, so my second shot was a miss and completely unnecessary. It was just a coincidence that he fell at the same time I fired, I should have trusted that my first shot was good. I spent some extra time cleaning a bunch of fat off of the carcass, he had a fair bit. Dad went over him with a propane torch to clean off any lose hair. It was 9:30pm by the time I left dads. My plans are to turn this deer in to pepperoni and sausage. Should be yum yum!!
I've shot bigger bucks before, but this one will do fine as a meat buck! Enjoy the pics.
The approach back from the vehicle. The tree to the far left was the one I was sitting under.
This wound is the entry wound.
Notice the funny growth above his eyelid?
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Originally Posted by TexasWalker
