To be really clear, longbranch, not my first deer or first whitetail, but my first BC whitetail.
When I grew up here, seeing deer was pretty rare, and they were all Mule Deer when they were here. Had never seen a WT here until the last few years.
The area is starting to see whitetail moving in, and I have mixed feelings about that. Mostly I see it as a negative, as they tend to be aggressive and crowd out the mule deer population. They also hybridize quite readily. PITA, or easy choice, depending on your point of view, that, when you whack a hybrid, as you then get to choose which tag you gotta cut, eh.
Gun is a late '50's Win 70 Fwt in .308 Winchester. My father bought it new.
Shot was 165 yards and a bit, using some 180 grain 'bag' bulk Winchester bullets. Dunno what the velocity is. I looked up a load that supposedly matched the velocity of the factory ammo I was using, and went with that. The bullets performed very well. I'd love to tell you it was a bang-flop, but it wasn't, as I pulled the shot. Went through the body longways and broke a hind leg. Followed him into the long grass, missed him once, put one low through his ribs, then put one good hit through him at 30 yards. All in the space of about 5 minutes.
Coulda just let him sit there and die, but I figured that I'd get him over and done, so I moved in on him.
I recovered two bullets from him, found a third set of holes. Not terrible, but I could have done better.
Real life performance, not the same as shooting paper, eh.
The river in the background is the Fraser. The property is my home, been in the family for a hundred years and a bit.
I like it!
Got the guy hanging and skinned out, gonna start cutting today.
Cheers
Trev
