A friend of mine was able to get me one of the nuisance deer tags we have available for a local farm. The farmer had their crops get hit hard this year and was looking forward to people thinning out the deer herd a bit.
So we get there a bit late in the morning, a little after 9 because i had to drop my daughter off at daycare first and as we're pulling into the field past some hay bales he starts saying stop stop stop, there's some deer right over there. we stop the truck behind they hay, grab our guns and sneak along to the end of the row. I peaked up over top and i could see 5 and he went down to the end and said there was 1 or 2 more down the hill a bit that i couldn't see.
We had worked out ahead of time that i was getting the first shot, so he set up in case he got a follow up, but i picked out one good sized doe, waited for her to turn sideways and hit her double lung, slightly quartering to me. She ran up hill and then to the field edge, the rest ran down over the hill and didn't give us an opportunity for a double.
I was using my sportered husky Swede in 6.5x55, made in 1917 shooting fiocchi ammo with 140 grain SST's. She ran maybe 50-60 yards max, large blood spatters every 8 or 10 feet made tracking a breeze.
As we got to the field edge we could see around the big hill in the center of the field and there were another 7 deer up in the back corner just chilling out, totally oblivious to the noise we had made.
They were standing around 250-300 yards, and my buddy only had his .243 and didn't want to chance it from that far away. I had left my gun in the truck since i saw my doe go down and wanted my hands free for dragging. He tried to sneak up the edge, but they saw him and ran off before he had a chance at them.
But all and all it was about as easy as it gets, we had to drag her maybe 30 yards back into the field to where we could pull the truck right up, got her tagged, cleaned out, then off to get registered and hung. From the time i pulled into the field to the time she was on the ground was a grand total of 4 minutes. If only they were all this easy.
And now comes the hard part of trying to fill my normal buck tag, but with this one in the freezer i have a little less urgency to get it done.
So we get there a bit late in the morning, a little after 9 because i had to drop my daughter off at daycare first and as we're pulling into the field past some hay bales he starts saying stop stop stop, there's some deer right over there. we stop the truck behind they hay, grab our guns and sneak along to the end of the row. I peaked up over top and i could see 5 and he went down to the end and said there was 1 or 2 more down the hill a bit that i couldn't see.
We had worked out ahead of time that i was getting the first shot, so he set up in case he got a follow up, but i picked out one good sized doe, waited for her to turn sideways and hit her double lung, slightly quartering to me. She ran up hill and then to the field edge, the rest ran down over the hill and didn't give us an opportunity for a double.
I was using my sportered husky Swede in 6.5x55, made in 1917 shooting fiocchi ammo with 140 grain SST's. She ran maybe 50-60 yards max, large blood spatters every 8 or 10 feet made tracking a breeze.
As we got to the field edge we could see around the big hill in the center of the field and there were another 7 deer up in the back corner just chilling out, totally oblivious to the noise we had made.
They were standing around 250-300 yards, and my buddy only had his .243 and didn't want to chance it from that far away. I had left my gun in the truck since i saw my doe go down and wanted my hands free for dragging. He tried to sneak up the edge, but they saw him and ran off before he had a chance at them.
But all and all it was about as easy as it gets, we had to drag her maybe 30 yards back into the field to where we could pull the truck right up, got her tagged, cleaned out, then off to get registered and hung. From the time i pulled into the field to the time she was on the ground was a grand total of 4 minutes. If only they were all this easy.
And now comes the hard part of trying to fill my normal buck tag, but with this one in the freezer i have a little less urgency to get it done.
