Yesterday was the best rifle opener I can remember having. The morning started with quietly walking to my stand, when I looked to my left and saw a leg step out from behind a tree. I was still about 300 yards from my stand and held still. Three more legs stepped forward. I knew it wasn’t anything huge and thought it was a doe. The freezer is empty, and I have the tags, for two bucks and four does so I took aim and shot. Off she ran. I started questioning nosler partitions and walked faster to my stand assuming after the shot there was no point being quiet.
I got into the stand and chambered another partition into the model 70 only ten minutes before hearing deer walk just to the north, which was on my right. Being right handed, I had to turn quite a bit, but the maker of the noise did not seem to notice. At thirty minutes after shooting, I had a big bodied 6 point in my crosshairs at sixty yards. I shot, and he ran. I made sure to aim perfectly and make a mental note of what the sight picture looked like when I pulled the trigger. When I found him the point of aim according to the mental note and the point of impact were a perfect match. The rifle shot fine. Again questioning partitions, I started tracking and was frustrated that there was no blood to follow. I heard this one crash, so I followed the direction from wince that sound had come, and then discovered that the fault was mine. There was an easy to follow blood trail, but I had misjudged distance. The deer was twenty yards further away at the shot than I thought he had been. I was tracking from where another deer ran through earlier kicking up leaves. Thankfully he crashed loudly enough that I found him and learned a humbling but important lesson about being sure you know where something is vs assuming you are experienced enough that your guess is factual.
after a long, uphill drag, I gutted that deer and proceeded to find and gut the first deer. Finding “her” revealed her to be a him because the antlers were blocked by ears. That’s two bucks, so now I have to be very careful to look for antlers. Does only for the rest of my season. I cleaned them and when I finished and grabbed a bite to eat, it was my son’s turn. He’s been trying to kill a deer for a few years but hasn’t had a shot until last year, and when that opportunity came nerves got the best of him and he missed. I took a .357 r92 for me and he with his savage axis in .223 joined me in an elevated blind. He was watching the woods and I was watching a field on the other side. Around 4:30 a deer came out into the field. I decided I did not want to shoot it, so I asked him if he thought he could get to my side quietly. He said he’d try. After setting up and taking aim (and using my fist as a quieter rest than the loud window ledge), I clicked off the safety for him and as soon as I gave him the go ahead he delivered a perfect shot on his first deer. He then tracked it himself, my only instructions being a reminder to mark last blood. I was and am very impressed with my ten year old.
Here come the pics.
View attachment 1180477
View attachment 1180475
View attachment 1180474
View attachment 1180472
View attachment 1180471