VIrginia Opening Day

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GLenn

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Saturday November 13 was the opening day for Virginia's regular hunting season for rifle and shotgun. Since I have pretty much relied on the muzzy for my hunting for the last 8 years or so that's what we used yesterday. I had the pleasure of taking my son-in-law Ryan and 9yo grandson Mason. Ryan is gun savvy but never had the opportunity to hunt. Mason wants nothing more then to hunt and fish.
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So we were in the stand pretty much at first light. Mason told me on the way to the woods that he didn't sleep very well. He said he was so excited to be going hunting. He said it was more exciting then Christmas morning. I thought that said a lot coming from a 9 yo who had never shot at a deer before. I ask him if he wanted to soot a buck or a deer. He said a deer whitch was perfectly OK with me. I explained to him how the hunt would unfold. That I didn't want him to shoot at the deer moving. That when the deer got broad side in the open I would make a little noise to stop the deer. That the deer would look in our direction. Then he would be able to shoot only when he was ready. We had been in the stand about 30 minutes when the first deer appeared. One lone deer that I took to be a doe but can't be totally sure. Everything happened as scripted right in front of the trail cam. As scripted except the shot was low and a clean miss. Note the smoke cloud at the stand.
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I thought it was a good hit as the deer looked to be going down when it whirled to leave. There was no hair no blood no sign of a hit. We actually found where the Barnes bullet went into the ground and best we could tell it was low under the chest. Mason was pretty disappointed but probably not as much as me. He is ready for redemption next Saturday.

Ryan had also never taken a deer. So we reloaded the CVA Mountain rifle with 70gr volume BH209 and the 250 gr TEZ. At this point we had not looked for Mason's deer and was giving it some time. Had we known Mason's shot was a miss he would have been shooting again. An hour after Mason's shot along come a big doe leading 4 others. I was pretty sure the leader was the doe so I gave Ryan the go ahead. He got his first deer, a 75# dressed doe.
 

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Congrats to your son in law. As for your grandson it will be even sweeter when he does get his first deer. It’s a tough pill to swallow but we all have missed before, it’s part of hunting.
 
Congrats to your son in law. As for your grandson it will be even sweeter when he does get his first deer. It’s a tough pill to swallow but we all have missed before, it’s part of hunting.

Ditto! Like 03mossy said we have all missed before and we’ve had more experience. He’ll get one next Saturday.:lewis:
 
Great come-back. Congrats on a fine deer kill!
 
Now I have an 8 and 7 YO grandson to work on. Then there is the 3 yo but he will have to wait a few years. Then the grand daughter that will brighten my life in April. It's the most fun I've ever had hunting.
 

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