Picture this if you will. It was a beautiful clear sunny (early) October morning. The air was crisp and sweet. I had left the other guys sleeping in the cabin and had driven 3 miles or so to where I would enter the woods. After hiking about a mile, I reached my favorite spot, a place where five ravines come together. There is a 10 or 15 foot hump of grass and rock covered gravel almost right where the ravines intersect. I climbed up and sat on a flat-topped rock facing the intersecting ravines. I lit up a smoke and relaxed. Some time later, I heard a grouse take off from the ravine to my left and I thought perhaps a coyote, bear or deer might be coming down, so I adjusted my seating arrangement so I could cover the more left hand ravine entrances. After a short wait I heard a sort of snort, but it seemed to come from behind me. I slowly turned my head and sure enough, there was a big 4 point (eight if you count both sides) buck, not more than maybe 15 yards away. SO----I slipped the safety off my 300 Weatherby and started to inch my way around on the rock. Slowly I raised the rifle and the buck stomped his foot and began to shift nervously. I was only partly turned toward him but I just knew he was about to take off (and I am the world’s worst running shot) so I twisted/leaned over until I got him in the cross hairs and touched of my shot! The scope hit me over my left eyebrow (I am right handed), the recoil knocked me off the rock, blood flowed freely into my eyes and I was franticly trying to get up, while the big buck bounced merrily off into the jack-pine thicket. On investigation, there was about a 3 inch wide, 2 foot long furrow in the gravel-top of the hump. While the scope was above the ground level the muzzle was not! I was left to hike back to my truck to see how bad the injury was because I could not tell by feel, even when I got the bleeding stopped. All that was left for me to do was drive back to the cabin and take the ribbing from the other guys. The cut was small but there was lots of blood and I still have a small, faint scar. Moral??---Don’t try “trick shots” with a 300 Weatherby!