Sitting in my ground blind that overlooks a lush clover field, armed with my White Super 91 .415 and Ed's gould hp bullet w/ 70gr. Swiss 2f, I was really hoping to take a nice, fat doe on the opener of KY's early mz weekend. With 30 min. of legal light left I got my wish. The 3 of them stepped into the clover and started feeding close together. A mom and what looked like her two yearlings stayed so close together that I didn't want to risk shooting one and wounding the other. Finally, they separated enough and I laid the White on the "y" of my shooting stick and put the crosshairs just behind her elbow. She was standing right next to my "100 yd tree" so I aimed a little low (zeroed at 130) and touched the trigger. At the shot the two yearlings jumped right back in the woods while the doe started across the clover snowplowing her nose the whole way. I heard her crash like a truck in the brush and thought all would be well. Just a short 30-40 yds from where I pulled the trigger. Not so.....After reloading another goulds hp, I walked down to the point where I marked her brush entry in my mind. Nothing, no blood, no hair, no sign and definitely no deer. My next fear was that she made it to the creek that runs behind my blind and crashed in the water. Since I was by myself, I didn't want to think about dragging her up that steep creek bank alone. Finally, I said "uncle" and called for another pair of eyes. When they arrived 45 minutes later, so did a local sherrif's deputy and a game warden, each in their respective SUV's. Turns out, someone on a neighboring farm heard me shoot twice near dark (once 23 min. prior at the doe, once after dark to unload) and thought someone was poaching on their land. I assured both the deputy and warden that it was me and I was on land I had full permission to hunt, gave all the details requested and showed my license. Everyone was satisfied so the search for my doe could resume. It was here I learned another valuable lesson. Flashlights that have LED's are great but if they are tinted slightly blue they stink at finding blood! My help arrived with a bright white flashlight and we found the blood trail right away. Turns out, we found her 10 feet from the field edge so deeply burried in the weeds that we almost stepped on her before seeing her. She had crashed with her head & neck leaning against a tree and it was a good thing - if not for the tree we would have been swimming in the creek.
The reason there wasn't much of a blood trail was my fault. Either I twitched a little or her elbow/shoulder moved back a little with her step, but instead of hitting directly through the heart, the bullet drove straight through the lower point of the shoulder blade. There was no exit hole through the hide but when I skinned her, there was a hole about thumb diameter just behind the opposite elbow with a lot of blood pooled behind the hide. By this time it was very late sorry, no deer pics) and I had a lot of work ahead of me to get her fully processed before church the next morning. I never did find the bullet but if I had to guess, it was probably mushroomed A LOT, maybe even flattened and lost in the goo that was between the hide and ribcage. That was the longest 30-40 yd tracking job I ever had. If there had been more light I probably would have found her right away. Anyway, the gould hp put a world of hurt on her, pretty much ruined one shoulder and still did enough damage to the heart/lungs that she was probably dead before the crash. Thanks Ed Mehlig for a great bullet.
The bullet:
The rifle:
The reason there wasn't much of a blood trail was my fault. Either I twitched a little or her elbow/shoulder moved back a little with her step, but instead of hitting directly through the heart, the bullet drove straight through the lower point of the shoulder blade. There was no exit hole through the hide but when I skinned her, there was a hole about thumb diameter just behind the opposite elbow with a lot of blood pooled behind the hide. By this time it was very late sorry, no deer pics) and I had a lot of work ahead of me to get her fully processed before church the next morning. I never did find the bullet but if I had to guess, it was probably mushroomed A LOT, maybe even flattened and lost in the goo that was between the hide and ribcage. That was the longest 30-40 yd tracking job I ever had. If there had been more light I probably would have found her right away. Anyway, the gould hp put a world of hurt on her, pretty much ruined one shoulder and still did enough damage to the heart/lungs that she was probably dead before the crash. Thanks Ed Mehlig for a great bullet.
The bullet:
The rifle: