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As a young man growing up in Michigan I started hunting pheasants and small game then evolved to deer hunting and eventually out of state for elk and antelope. I remember the phrase if you can hit a paper plate thats good enough. Nowadays I actually scold people for such a statement.
As a young ignorant kid that made sense sitting on a bench shooting at the vitals of a deer larger than the size of a paper plate. Luckily I enjoyed shooting and reloading. I demanded better.
It paid off in a place called Lake City, Michigan. I had purchased a Mark X barreled action and made a homemade fiberglass stock ( before they made them). It was in a 270 Winchester. The stock wasn't pretty but with 135 grain hollow point boat tails it shot like a dream. Nobody even taught me to hunt so I made lots of mistakes. Not very patient.
I saw a nice racked buck my first day out but I was to wiggly. He saw me and bolted. The second morning I was sitting at a stump and heard turkeys scratching and carrying on behind me. I had grown accustomed to the noise as they hung out there the day before. After an extended period of time I decided to watch turkeys for a while and slowly shifted my position only to find no turkey but the buck from the day before making a scrape about 130 yards away.
There was way too much brush to make a shot so spent the next 15 minutes trying to find a hole in the brush. None found. I had the stump to benchrest on. The deer started walking off. I put the cross-hair on him and followed. Eventually I found a hole ( and it wasn't much of a hole) and took the shot. It was the biggest Michigan deer I ever took. 12 points to me and 14 to some others. Never would have brought that deer home with an average shooting gun.
Same for my first elk in Colorado. Had to shoot between 2 trees at 375 yards. All the trigger pulling and fine tuning got me both of those animals.
If you know someone who believes hitting a paper plate is good enough then someday you will hear a story of the one that got away. Hope its not you.
As a young ignorant kid that made sense sitting on a bench shooting at the vitals of a deer larger than the size of a paper plate. Luckily I enjoyed shooting and reloading. I demanded better.
It paid off in a place called Lake City, Michigan. I had purchased a Mark X barreled action and made a homemade fiberglass stock ( before they made them). It was in a 270 Winchester. The stock wasn't pretty but with 135 grain hollow point boat tails it shot like a dream. Nobody even taught me to hunt so I made lots of mistakes. Not very patient.
I saw a nice racked buck my first day out but I was to wiggly. He saw me and bolted. The second morning I was sitting at a stump and heard turkeys scratching and carrying on behind me. I had grown accustomed to the noise as they hung out there the day before. After an extended period of time I decided to watch turkeys for a while and slowly shifted my position only to find no turkey but the buck from the day before making a scrape about 130 yards away.
There was way too much brush to make a shot so spent the next 15 minutes trying to find a hole in the brush. None found. I had the stump to benchrest on. The deer started walking off. I put the cross-hair on him and followed. Eventually I found a hole ( and it wasn't much of a hole) and took the shot. It was the biggest Michigan deer I ever took. 12 points to me and 14 to some others. Never would have brought that deer home with an average shooting gun.
Same for my first elk in Colorado. Had to shoot between 2 trees at 375 yards. All the trigger pulling and fine tuning got me both of those animals.
If you know someone who believes hitting a paper plate is good enough then someday you will hear a story of the one that got away. Hope its not you.
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