bcfirefly
11-12-2013, 04:52 PM
Just thought I would post up my weekend hunt. Nothing too noteworthy but after hunting hard for the past few weekends with lots of doe’s seen to finally connect feels pretty good! Shifted to Whitetails after trying for a muley but only getting a quick glance at a large buck. Got within 15 yards several times to doe’s which was a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity.
Anyways Saturday morning was fooled by what I thought was a doe which turned out to be a very thin black spiker. Offered no shot once I finally figured out that he was a buck at first light.
Followed these tracks for a bit. This was very low down near the valley bottom so must have been fatting up one last time before bed time. 2 ½ “ 20 gauge shell and a .338 wm and size 12 boot.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/Photo0059_zpscf15c078.jpg
Back out next morning and this time a nice 2 point came into view. After a few opportunities and a small case of buck fever, calmed down to take a decent resting shot at 100 yards. Knew I had connected but was very surprised to see the deer running away. I am using my .338 win mag as I am the most comfortable with it and figured that on deer it would be a bang / flop scenario. I got the gun primarily for the awesome optics and as I am just getting into hunting figured I would just hunt moose and elk after having an aversion to venison from years back. That all changed last year when my father in law got a nice fat WT!
Walked down to where he was standing when I shot and after a few mins found some blood. Whew! Confirmation that I had at least connected with my first deer. Easy enough to follow the tracks and few blood drops till the snow ended. Last blood trail was a larger amount of darker blood so knew there was some internal organ damage and he couldn’t have gone too far. Only now it was out of the block into cover with no snow and deeper litter layer so harder to find his trail with all the other sign in the area. First time tracking after a shot so was patient but getting frustrated with not being able to find any sign. Knew there was a fenceline in the timber another 50 or so yards in and figured if he had jumped over I would see his landing marks and some blood... nothing! Crap! Well back to the last seen sign I guess. Started to walk back and then I saw him laying about 10 feet up from the fence. First deer down! Bullet placement was perfect going in but he was quartering a bit so took out the liver and went out below the ribs on the other side. A really long pull (1 km) uphill through timber and the block to the truck and my day was done!
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/Photo0061_zps9374abfe.jpg
My buddies stayed put and were hoping for the little spiker to show up but nothing that day but connected in the exact same spot on a similar buck the next day. Good weekend for a buch of newbies. Off this weekend for my LEH Shared Moose hunt ... last year we had 2 down in 15 mins on the first day so hoping for a repeat.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/IMG_15699_zps1a374ed0.jpg
Anyways Saturday morning was fooled by what I thought was a doe which turned out to be a very thin black spiker. Offered no shot once I finally figured out that he was a buck at first light.
Followed these tracks for a bit. This was very low down near the valley bottom so must have been fatting up one last time before bed time. 2 ½ “ 20 gauge shell and a .338 wm and size 12 boot.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/Photo0059_zpscf15c078.jpg
Back out next morning and this time a nice 2 point came into view. After a few opportunities and a small case of buck fever, calmed down to take a decent resting shot at 100 yards. Knew I had connected but was very surprised to see the deer running away. I am using my .338 win mag as I am the most comfortable with it and figured that on deer it would be a bang / flop scenario. I got the gun primarily for the awesome optics and as I am just getting into hunting figured I would just hunt moose and elk after having an aversion to venison from years back. That all changed last year when my father in law got a nice fat WT!
Walked down to where he was standing when I shot and after a few mins found some blood. Whew! Confirmation that I had at least connected with my first deer. Easy enough to follow the tracks and few blood drops till the snow ended. Last blood trail was a larger amount of darker blood so knew there was some internal organ damage and he couldn’t have gone too far. Only now it was out of the block into cover with no snow and deeper litter layer so harder to find his trail with all the other sign in the area. First time tracking after a shot so was patient but getting frustrated with not being able to find any sign. Knew there was a fenceline in the timber another 50 or so yards in and figured if he had jumped over I would see his landing marks and some blood... nothing! Crap! Well back to the last seen sign I guess. Started to walk back and then I saw him laying about 10 feet up from the fence. First deer down! Bullet placement was perfect going in but he was quartering a bit so took out the liver and went out below the ribs on the other side. A really long pull (1 km) uphill through timber and the block to the truck and my day was done!
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/Photo0061_zps9374abfe.jpg
My buddies stayed put and were hoping for the little spiker to show up but nothing that day but connected in the exact same spot on a similar buck the next day. Good weekend for a buch of newbies. Off this weekend for my LEH Shared Moose hunt ... last year we had 2 down in 15 mins on the first day so hoping for a repeat.
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag154/bcfirefly/Hunting%202013/IMG_15699_zps1a374ed0.jpg