Hugh Mann
10-10-2022, 10:08 PM
Preface: HBC really needs a more streamlined process for uploading photos for us techo-illiterate types, otherwise I’d absolutely post a photo or two.
Story: Opening day of any whitetail AND it’s a paid holiday, so no way in hell am I missing this. Got out right at the start of legal light and… nothing bigger than a hare, naturally. Then my buddy sends me a picture of the tasty little doe he bagged, so I at least know they’re around. Spent most of the day hiking into various areas and finding precisely nothing. Did I mention the major windstorm that was going on with up to 60km/h winds? Ordinarily that’s enough to cause me to stay home, but alas. My PAL expires next Tuesday and my renewal still hasn’t been approved yet, and the freezer is running low from a less than spectacular fall and spring season the previous year.
By the time the afternoon starts rolling by, I said bugger this, and cruised over to my mulie spot, parked and walked with the wind. I poked into every single bit of cover a savvy deer might want and bumped absolutely nothing. Did this for a couple hours until I went around one stand of trees and spotted a coyote just hanging out with precisely zero fluffs given, and I am sure everyone can guess how that turned out. Well, as it just so happened, not 300 metres away around a bend I spotted two mulies hanging out in some rosehips! One standing, one bedded. Belly down, crawled onto a little rise and glassed them. Sure enough, a pair of bucks. Not big ones, just two points, about 160 metres out with a major crosswind. I watched them just long enough to determine the standing one had a bigger body, so I gave him a rather fatal case of rapid onset copper poisoning. 165 grain handloaded Hornady ECX from my Benelli R1. Went down like a bag of bricks. You know what the other buck did? Nothing. Not a damn thing, didn’t even flinch. It wasn’t until I stood up and walked within 50 metres that he stood up and hopped away, and wouldn’t you know, a third little buck popped up and bounced off. I got a good look at the two of them, and the one that went down was clearly bigger, whoo hoo! Then the third buck had the cojones to stop and stare at me, total broadside and didn’t leave until I got within 20-30 metres. And there was my buck, didn’t move an inch. Though I was an idiot and forgot to account for the crosswind, and my bullet was about 7” inches off (out of curiosity, a ballistic calculator said at that windspeed, that’s about accurate for my bullet and load) and smoked him through the base of the throat, still went down anyways, much to my surprise. Turned out he was a 3x2, with his one antler looking kind of like a trident, which is pretty dang cool if you ask me.
Even with the guts out, in my tired condition, he was a bit too heavy to get onto my shoulders, so I had to drag him around 700 metres, took about an hour and a bit, fortunately I had a nice “breeze”. Got him loaded up and now he’s hanging in my shed awaiting a trip to the butchers tomorrow. Certainly not the biggest deer in the world, and not my biggest buck either, but you know what? Meat is meat, especially when it’s just lil old me to feed.
So yeah. There’s me story, hope y’all enjoyed and didn’t find it too rambly and/or disjointed. Here’s to a whitetail in the next 7 days!
Story: Opening day of any whitetail AND it’s a paid holiday, so no way in hell am I missing this. Got out right at the start of legal light and… nothing bigger than a hare, naturally. Then my buddy sends me a picture of the tasty little doe he bagged, so I at least know they’re around. Spent most of the day hiking into various areas and finding precisely nothing. Did I mention the major windstorm that was going on with up to 60km/h winds? Ordinarily that’s enough to cause me to stay home, but alas. My PAL expires next Tuesday and my renewal still hasn’t been approved yet, and the freezer is running low from a less than spectacular fall and spring season the previous year.
By the time the afternoon starts rolling by, I said bugger this, and cruised over to my mulie spot, parked and walked with the wind. I poked into every single bit of cover a savvy deer might want and bumped absolutely nothing. Did this for a couple hours until I went around one stand of trees and spotted a coyote just hanging out with precisely zero fluffs given, and I am sure everyone can guess how that turned out. Well, as it just so happened, not 300 metres away around a bend I spotted two mulies hanging out in some rosehips! One standing, one bedded. Belly down, crawled onto a little rise and glassed them. Sure enough, a pair of bucks. Not big ones, just two points, about 160 metres out with a major crosswind. I watched them just long enough to determine the standing one had a bigger body, so I gave him a rather fatal case of rapid onset copper poisoning. 165 grain handloaded Hornady ECX from my Benelli R1. Went down like a bag of bricks. You know what the other buck did? Nothing. Not a damn thing, didn’t even flinch. It wasn’t until I stood up and walked within 50 metres that he stood up and hopped away, and wouldn’t you know, a third little buck popped up and bounced off. I got a good look at the two of them, and the one that went down was clearly bigger, whoo hoo! Then the third buck had the cojones to stop and stare at me, total broadside and didn’t leave until I got within 20-30 metres. And there was my buck, didn’t move an inch. Though I was an idiot and forgot to account for the crosswind, and my bullet was about 7” inches off (out of curiosity, a ballistic calculator said at that windspeed, that’s about accurate for my bullet and load) and smoked him through the base of the throat, still went down anyways, much to my surprise. Turned out he was a 3x2, with his one antler looking kind of like a trident, which is pretty dang cool if you ask me.
Even with the guts out, in my tired condition, he was a bit too heavy to get onto my shoulders, so I had to drag him around 700 metres, took about an hour and a bit, fortunately I had a nice “breeze”. Got him loaded up and now he’s hanging in my shed awaiting a trip to the butchers tomorrow. Certainly not the biggest deer in the world, and not my biggest buck either, but you know what? Meat is meat, especially when it’s just lil old me to feed.
So yeah. There’s me story, hope y’all enjoyed and didn’t find it too rambly and/or disjointed. Here’s to a whitetail in the next 7 days!