- Joined
- Jul 16, 2005
- Messages
- 432
- Reaction score
- 1
My many Saturdays of scouting last summer and fall finally paid off. Or I just got lucky. 
I took my buddy hunting again this weekend (last weekend was his first time to hunt). We went to a piece of public land that was having a controlled, non-quota hunt this weekend. Once they opened the gate at 5:30, we only had 45 minutes before daylight, so he had his hunting clothes on before we got in the gate. We parked, I put on my boots, and we started walking down the dirt road descending a ridge then crossed the creek at the bottom, and walked up the road on the next ridge over, then veered off onto a marked trail running parallel to the creek along the hemlock/hardwoods edge. I took him in the dark down to just above the creek and told him to watch the opposite side and pointed in the dark to where a field ran up agains a pine thicket. There was a thin strip of hardwoods between the bottom of the pine thicket/bottom of the field and top of the hemlock habitat. So, essentially, there were three different "edges" within sight, with a fourth edge (the field/pines) T-ing into the other two. Of course, there are discernible travel routes along all of those edges. So, I told him to stay put and watch.
I turned around, and trotted back the way we came, got my gun and pack from the car (I was just wearing my camo thermals and hunter orange), and then hiked on up the ridge about 100 yards above the field and pine thicket, then hiked a quarter of a mile along the level top of the ridge to my spot. I described that spot in the first and sixth posts on this thread:
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 747#000000
On the way in, a guy drove up behind me and asked where I was heading. I told him I was going to turn off the road two hundred yards up and hunt in there. He said, "Okay, I'll park out of your way and hunt the opposite direction." So what does he do? Drives up a hundred yards (halfway to my spot, and parks within sight of my tree.
By the time I got to my spot (a tree a few yards from my climbing tree and bigger around to block more of my outline) and cleared away the sticks and leaves at the base and set up my folding chair, it was 10 minutes past legal light and almost light enough to see to shoot. I slipped on my insulated pants and jacket and pretended to be part of the tree behind me.
Then a white Expedition drives up and parks 100 yards on the OTHER side of my spot. I start Bob-whiting at them incessantly, then switch to other whistles. They just whistle back at me and spend the next 20 minutes getting dressed and loaded up, then walk TOWARD me! The stood and stared for a while then walked on past.
Another ten minutes, and a red jeep parks 75 yards away, and I start whistling again. This hunter was gracious enough to drive on when he heard me whistling at him. I settled back in and didn't move for about half an hour.
The THICK (saplings, saw briar, and blackberry vines)stuff came about two thirds of the way from the road down the top of the finger, and I was on the side of the finger below the thick stuff about half way down the length of the finger, facing up toward the tangled junk. There is a string of old rubs (I never had a chance to check them this fall) between my buddy's spot and mine with some rubbed trees the size of my leg above my knee, and as I described in my earlier thread, I think they use both directions (past me or past my friend's spot) as escape routes.
The wind was blowing at an angle to the lenth of the finger, out of thick stuff toward me. I see a flash of brown to my left, and then started seeing a deer moving through the trees at the end of the thick stuff away from the road. I pretty quickly see there are pale things above its head, so I go ahead an find him in the scope. At first I don't have a clear shot because I'm looking through saplings and briars and mature trees. He's nosing around on the ground for acorns, moving along the edge of the thick stuff away from the road, about 40 yards from me. As he rounds the corner of the thick stuff, he turns and starts nibbling his way directly toward me.
He takes a couple of steps with his head down. I consider shooting through the top of his neck, but due to the angle, the bullet would go in the neck and out his back, not into the chest cavity. I'm afraid if I don't shoot far enough down the neck (toward his head), the bullet will skim through and not actually go through the spine. If I move that close to his head, I'm afraid he might raise his head as I fire and blow off an antler.
I wait, resting my arms on my knees and keeping him in the crosshairs, and telling myself to calm down, breath slowly, it's just a deer, you've practiced for this and done it before. He moves another couple steps closer. Finally, he raises his head and looks upwind into the thick stuff, sniffing. (He's cross-wind to me.) No lip curl, just sniffing. The way he looks to his left puts a slight angle on his body, so instead of shooting right at the base of his neck, I put the crosshairs to the left (my left, his right) about half way between the throat and shoulder, and about half way up his body. I realize there is a lot of bone there, but I think the 245 grain Barnes Spitfire at approximately 2450 fps should have no problem getting through it.
BOOM!
As the gun comes back down from the recoil, see the last of his fall to the ground, right where he had been standing. I stand up and can see a leg quivering in the air, jerking a little for a few seconds. I screw together my take-down ramrod, pull the patch from my speed loader, and swab my barrel while watching the deer. It's about this time that I start thinking, "If all I can see of the downed deer is an antler, he may have a pretty good rack!"
Rather than wasting a bullet and powder by loading when I can't hunt anymore, I start walking toward the deer, powder in hand, ready to load if I see movement. There is none, I touch the eye ball with a stick, and start admiring. The first thing that struck me was that he was a HOSS for around here. Second thing was he was RANK! I started smelling his musk with 10 steps left to go. (I'm pretty sure I smelled him about ten minutes before I saw him; I think he moved through the thick stuff upwind of me.)
I tagged him, took off my insulated clothes, took my gun and pack, and jogged the half mile to my car. I didn't want to give any other hunter an opportunity to walk off with the deer, but there was no way I was dragging him a half mile! I drove the car to where the red Jeep had parked earler, then went back and started dragging.
People I've hunted with will tell you--with a normal size doe, I can flat out trot while dragging. With this deer, I had to stop every ten or twenty steps and catch my breath. I finally got him up the slope to the road, and then had to figure out how to get him into the car by myself. I eventually did, but I am still sore today!
Final stats:
166 pounds live weight/132 field dressed
8 points
2.5 years old
17.5 and 17 inch main beams 3.5" circumference
14.1 inside spread
36 yard shot
Deer traveled 3 feet--straight down
Entrance wound approximately 1" diameter in hide, hole approximately 2" diameter in muscle below skin
As you can see in the pics, the Barnes lost one petal, and two bent over to the side instead of outward; I have no doubt that this was a result of hitting heavy bone and that it would have made a perfect flower if it had been a broadside shot--as it is, the other three curled beautifully.
I know there are many of you that would have let him go, but other than last Saturday's button buck, this is my first buck. And to have scouted this spot so thoroughly and have it pay off--on public land--I am thrilled with this deer. My buddy also had a big doe, unalarmed, come down the trail I pointed out to him and pass within 20 yards without ever seeing him, so I'm feeling pretty good about my scouting skills.
Autopsy confirmed 245 grain Barnes Spitfire (solid copper), propelled by 67 grains IMR 4198 and CCI 209M, passed through the breastbone/front of rib cage, butterflied the top of the heart and smashed the aorta, obliterated most all of one lung, punched through diaphragm, hit the bottom half of the liver, and lodged agains the hide of the belly just in front of the genitalia.
I'll post pics when I get back from church.
------------------------
Pics:
I took my buddy hunting again this weekend (last weekend was his first time to hunt). We went to a piece of public land that was having a controlled, non-quota hunt this weekend. Once they opened the gate at 5:30, we only had 45 minutes before daylight, so he had his hunting clothes on before we got in the gate. We parked, I put on my boots, and we started walking down the dirt road descending a ridge then crossed the creek at the bottom, and walked up the road on the next ridge over, then veered off onto a marked trail running parallel to the creek along the hemlock/hardwoods edge. I took him in the dark down to just above the creek and told him to watch the opposite side and pointed in the dark to where a field ran up agains a pine thicket. There was a thin strip of hardwoods between the bottom of the pine thicket/bottom of the field and top of the hemlock habitat. So, essentially, there were three different "edges" within sight, with a fourth edge (the field/pines) T-ing into the other two. Of course, there are discernible travel routes along all of those edges. So, I told him to stay put and watch.
I turned around, and trotted back the way we came, got my gun and pack from the car (I was just wearing my camo thermals and hunter orange), and then hiked on up the ridge about 100 yards above the field and pine thicket, then hiked a quarter of a mile along the level top of the ridge to my spot. I described that spot in the first and sixth posts on this thread:
http://www.tndeer.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultima ... 747#000000
On the way in, a guy drove up behind me and asked where I was heading. I told him I was going to turn off the road two hundred yards up and hunt in there. He said, "Okay, I'll park out of your way and hunt the opposite direction." So what does he do? Drives up a hundred yards (halfway to my spot, and parks within sight of my tree.
By the time I got to my spot (a tree a few yards from my climbing tree and bigger around to block more of my outline) and cleared away the sticks and leaves at the base and set up my folding chair, it was 10 minutes past legal light and almost light enough to see to shoot. I slipped on my insulated pants and jacket and pretended to be part of the tree behind me.
Then a white Expedition drives up and parks 100 yards on the OTHER side of my spot. I start Bob-whiting at them incessantly, then switch to other whistles. They just whistle back at me and spend the next 20 minutes getting dressed and loaded up, then walk TOWARD me! The stood and stared for a while then walked on past.
Another ten minutes, and a red jeep parks 75 yards away, and I start whistling again. This hunter was gracious enough to drive on when he heard me whistling at him. I settled back in and didn't move for about half an hour.
The THICK (saplings, saw briar, and blackberry vines)stuff came about two thirds of the way from the road down the top of the finger, and I was on the side of the finger below the thick stuff about half way down the length of the finger, facing up toward the tangled junk. There is a string of old rubs (I never had a chance to check them this fall) between my buddy's spot and mine with some rubbed trees the size of my leg above my knee, and as I described in my earlier thread, I think they use both directions (past me or past my friend's spot) as escape routes.
The wind was blowing at an angle to the lenth of the finger, out of thick stuff toward me. I see a flash of brown to my left, and then started seeing a deer moving through the trees at the end of the thick stuff away from the road. I pretty quickly see there are pale things above its head, so I go ahead an find him in the scope. At first I don't have a clear shot because I'm looking through saplings and briars and mature trees. He's nosing around on the ground for acorns, moving along the edge of the thick stuff away from the road, about 40 yards from me. As he rounds the corner of the thick stuff, he turns and starts nibbling his way directly toward me.
He takes a couple of steps with his head down. I consider shooting through the top of his neck, but due to the angle, the bullet would go in the neck and out his back, not into the chest cavity. I'm afraid if I don't shoot far enough down the neck (toward his head), the bullet will skim through and not actually go through the spine. If I move that close to his head, I'm afraid he might raise his head as I fire and blow off an antler.
I wait, resting my arms on my knees and keeping him in the crosshairs, and telling myself to calm down, breath slowly, it's just a deer, you've practiced for this and done it before. He moves another couple steps closer. Finally, he raises his head and looks upwind into the thick stuff, sniffing. (He's cross-wind to me.) No lip curl, just sniffing. The way he looks to his left puts a slight angle on his body, so instead of shooting right at the base of his neck, I put the crosshairs to the left (my left, his right) about half way between the throat and shoulder, and about half way up his body. I realize there is a lot of bone there, but I think the 245 grain Barnes Spitfire at approximately 2450 fps should have no problem getting through it.
BOOM!
As the gun comes back down from the recoil, see the last of his fall to the ground, right where he had been standing. I stand up and can see a leg quivering in the air, jerking a little for a few seconds. I screw together my take-down ramrod, pull the patch from my speed loader, and swab my barrel while watching the deer. It's about this time that I start thinking, "If all I can see of the downed deer is an antler, he may have a pretty good rack!"
Rather than wasting a bullet and powder by loading when I can't hunt anymore, I start walking toward the deer, powder in hand, ready to load if I see movement. There is none, I touch the eye ball with a stick, and start admiring. The first thing that struck me was that he was a HOSS for around here. Second thing was he was RANK! I started smelling his musk with 10 steps left to go. (I'm pretty sure I smelled him about ten minutes before I saw him; I think he moved through the thick stuff upwind of me.)
I tagged him, took off my insulated clothes, took my gun and pack, and jogged the half mile to my car. I didn't want to give any other hunter an opportunity to walk off with the deer, but there was no way I was dragging him a half mile! I drove the car to where the red Jeep had parked earler, then went back and started dragging.
People I've hunted with will tell you--with a normal size doe, I can flat out trot while dragging. With this deer, I had to stop every ten or twenty steps and catch my breath. I finally got him up the slope to the road, and then had to figure out how to get him into the car by myself. I eventually did, but I am still sore today!
Final stats:
166 pounds live weight/132 field dressed
8 points
2.5 years old
17.5 and 17 inch main beams 3.5" circumference
14.1 inside spread
36 yard shot
Deer traveled 3 feet--straight down
Entrance wound approximately 1" diameter in hide, hole approximately 2" diameter in muscle below skin
As you can see in the pics, the Barnes lost one petal, and two bent over to the side instead of outward; I have no doubt that this was a result of hitting heavy bone and that it would have made a perfect flower if it had been a broadside shot--as it is, the other three curled beautifully.
I know there are many of you that would have let him go, but other than last Saturday's button buck, this is my first buck. And to have scouted this spot so thoroughly and have it pay off--on public land--I am thrilled with this deer. My buddy also had a big doe, unalarmed, come down the trail I pointed out to him and pass within 20 yards without ever seeing him, so I'm feeling pretty good about my scouting skills.
Autopsy confirmed 245 grain Barnes Spitfire (solid copper), propelled by 67 grains IMR 4198 and CCI 209M, passed through the breastbone/front of rib cage, butterflied the top of the heart and smashed the aorta, obliterated most all of one lung, punched through diaphragm, hit the bottom half of the liver, and lodged agains the hide of the belly just in front of the genitalia.
I'll post pics when I get back from church.
------------------------
Pics:
