I was shocked to realize that's how long I sat on stand this year, waiting for this buck to offer a shot. I spotted him on the first day I hunted (day 2 of our 21 day season) and then twice more as the days progressed, but never had a shot. Weather was too warm, no snow on the ground, lots of very windy days. Nevertheless, saw decent numbers of deer almost every day, but I was fixated on him. The last few days, temps dropped a fair bit, and daytime rutting activity increased. I sat out all day, almost every day. Finally, on day 20, out popped a doe with the big guy in tow. He strutted out like he owned the world, took a bullet at 286 yards, charged back into the trees (thick stand of aspen) and I spent almost three hours looking for him, which included an ever-widening search radius in the treeline, a dejected and desperate walk back to the blind, and a mental replay of his final mad dash. I realized that his angle of travel had actually taken him into the trees a little further back than I originally thought, renewed my search and found him within about another 10 minutes. He had travelled only about 75 yards from where he was shot, and had piled up in a thick tangle of downed branches and trunks, almost invisible until I practically stepped on him. One single splash of blood in the open field where he was hit, and then not another drop until I found him in a pool of it.
Tripped the trigger at roughly 10am; by the time I got him back to the house it was dusk, skinned him out in the dark.
I used a Steyr-Mannlicher Professional Model M, chambered in .30-06, with an older Zeiss Duralyt scope, plain old Remington Core Lokt 165gr loads that must have been in my basement for 20+ years. I'm not a .30-06 fan, don't even remember where I got them. Set the rear trigger, stopped him with a loud bleat, and then touched the front trigger. Surprising amount of blood shot meat, especially considering that the only bone I hit was a rib going in and another going out.
Tripped the trigger at roughly 10am; by the time I got him back to the house it was dusk, skinned him out in the dark.
I used a Steyr-Mannlicher Professional Model M, chambered in .30-06, with an older Zeiss Duralyt scope, plain old Remington Core Lokt 165gr loads that must have been in my basement for 20+ years. I'm not a .30-06 fan, don't even remember where I got them. Set the rear trigger, stopped him with a loud bleat, and then touched the front trigger. Surprising amount of blood shot meat, especially considering that the only bone I hit was a rib going in and another going out.
