Great weekend for SML
Nov 25, 2013 13:50:39 GMT -5
Post by rangeball on Nov 25, 2013 13:50:39 GMT -5
Beautiful, cold opening morning. Had rained the previous two days and everything was quiet. At about 7:30 I looked to my right and a small 8 pt. had stepped out of the creek bottom, had come down a tall steep ridge, crossed the creek and was right there, and I never heard him. Nice young deer, offered an easy 15 yd shot but I passed and he eventually worked his way down the field bottom I was covering. From the tree I was in I could shoot 300 yds each way, covering about 6 crossings. Later that morning a small doe worked the treeline behind me eating acorns and forbs. Headed back to the cabin about 10 am to get warmed up and some food.
Evening hunt about an hour before dark I saw a large body buck 300yds down the field to the east, but only for about 5 seconds before he moved into the timber out of sight. Looked like a bruiser but I only got a quick look at him. The young doe came out again to eat more, then back into the woods. Right before dark I was looking east down the field and a large body deer stepped out of the woods headed south toward to the creek, and looked my way. I put the gun on the bipod and quickly saw he was wider than his ears and tall, and also getting nervous. I centered the crosshairs behind his shoulder mid center of his body and let fly. He took off like a bat out of hell, crossed the creek and I swore I heard a crash later up the ravine he went into. I had followed him in the scope as he ran across and say no evidence of a hit. Since I wasn't able to do my final load work up with the APB to get sizing just right and was only able to get it shooting at 1.5 moa I was almost convinced I missed him.
Got down and went to where he was, 180yds out. Found where he spun out but no blood. Slowly worked my way towards where he would have crossed the creek and about 3/4 of the way across the field found a spot of blood, then more, then more. Got to the edge of the creek bank, about a 12' drop almost straight down, and since it was almost dark and my light wasn't up to it, marked the spot and went back for some help and a better light.
Found where he crossed the creek, kept finding just enough blood to give us a direction, then he started bleeding much better and I felt way more confident. He started moving up the ridge then cut back towards the bottom and we couldn't find blood. My 6 yr old nephew was with us and he said "there it is" and I said "you found blood?" and he said "no the deer". He was right, it was laying about 20yds from us down the ridge.
Heck of a drag out, had to use the winch to get him up the creek bank, turned out to be a 140s class main frame 8 pt with two stickers off his left G1-
Bullet impacted right where it was supposed to. Caliber sized entry and a bit bigger than a half dollar exit. He went about 130 yds total.
At the end of the first day we had 4 hanging, my buck, and three does, one my brother shot-
My brother took my nephew and my other nephew who's 4 out yesterday afternoon. We had set up an H&R buffalo classic for smokeless ml with a real light load pushing a 225gr bullet at 1500 fps, no recoil to speak of. It has the ring system peep sights like he's used to on his air guns, and at the range he center punched everything he looked at. They walked up the hill behind the cabin, hunkered down behind a log and 15 min later 3 does crested the ridge walking right towards them. The deer saw them, turned to start to leave and nephew snapped up, cocked the gun and made a perfect shot on the biggest doe. She made it about 30yds up the top of the ridge and fell over. I think he looks happy-
All in all a great start to the season.
Evening hunt about an hour before dark I saw a large body buck 300yds down the field to the east, but only for about 5 seconds before he moved into the timber out of sight. Looked like a bruiser but I only got a quick look at him. The young doe came out again to eat more, then back into the woods. Right before dark I was looking east down the field and a large body deer stepped out of the woods headed south toward to the creek, and looked my way. I put the gun on the bipod and quickly saw he was wider than his ears and tall, and also getting nervous. I centered the crosshairs behind his shoulder mid center of his body and let fly. He took off like a bat out of hell, crossed the creek and I swore I heard a crash later up the ravine he went into. I had followed him in the scope as he ran across and say no evidence of a hit. Since I wasn't able to do my final load work up with the APB to get sizing just right and was only able to get it shooting at 1.5 moa I was almost convinced I missed him.
Got down and went to where he was, 180yds out. Found where he spun out but no blood. Slowly worked my way towards where he would have crossed the creek and about 3/4 of the way across the field found a spot of blood, then more, then more. Got to the edge of the creek bank, about a 12' drop almost straight down, and since it was almost dark and my light wasn't up to it, marked the spot and went back for some help and a better light.
Found where he crossed the creek, kept finding just enough blood to give us a direction, then he started bleeding much better and I felt way more confident. He started moving up the ridge then cut back towards the bottom and we couldn't find blood. My 6 yr old nephew was with us and he said "there it is" and I said "you found blood?" and he said "no the deer". He was right, it was laying about 20yds from us down the ridge.
Heck of a drag out, had to use the winch to get him up the creek bank, turned out to be a 140s class main frame 8 pt with two stickers off his left G1-
Bullet impacted right where it was supposed to. Caliber sized entry and a bit bigger than a half dollar exit. He went about 130 yds total.
At the end of the first day we had 4 hanging, my buck, and three does, one my brother shot-
My brother took my nephew and my other nephew who's 4 out yesterday afternoon. We had set up an H&R buffalo classic for smokeless ml with a real light load pushing a 225gr bullet at 1500 fps, no recoil to speak of. It has the ring system peep sights like he's used to on his air guns, and at the range he center punched everything he looked at. They walked up the hill behind the cabin, hunkered down behind a log and 15 min later 3 does crested the ridge walking right towards them. The deer saw them, turned to start to leave and nephew snapped up, cocked the gun and made a perfect shot on the biggest doe. She made it about 30yds up the top of the ridge and fell over. I think he looks happy-
All in all a great start to the season.
