It's a bit long, but once i get typing i sometimes get lost in the details.
I had two days off this week, the first week of rifle season for deer and drew an antlerless deer tag for the zone i hunt, so if it was brown and walking i was planning on taking the first shot that presented itself to get some meat in the freezer.
Day one a friend and i who is pretty new to hunting set up in the different fields owned by a friends uncle. Most of the fields are just clover/grass for cattle feed, but this year one of them was planted with corn and cut a while ago, but there's plenty of missed cobs and new green growing up in between the cut corn rows. I let my friend have the corn field since it's likely the best chance of seeing deer and also not as long of a shot. He's comfortable out to 100 yards, but much past that he hasn't practised enough yet to be comfortable with it. He didn't draw an antlerless tag, so he's looking for a buck, and being his first deer he wants it to be a buck anyway.
I went with the hayfield with a big corner that cuts into the woods that i've had success at before. We have an old brush blind we made years ago that's long fallen down that i still sneak into the wreckage of and am in enough of a shadow that you don't get spotted unless the deer get real close or you're moving around a lot.
Opening day we get to the farm well before light, quietly head our separate ways and get settled in for the sun to come up. Within 25 minutes of legal shooting time he sends me a picture of 6 does in his field between 50-80 yards away and the debate comes up in my mind, do i bail on my spot and try and sneak over there before the deer move on or get spooked, or do i stick it out and keep to my original plan? I decide to just sit tight because with my luck i'd stand up, some deer i didn't see would bust me and blow and let every other deer on my side of the hill know to stay away, and then by the time i got over there they would probably have moved on anyway.
Well you can guess that i made the wrong choice. I sit all morning and see absolutely nothing and those does stick around for almost an hour before they make their way out of the field. At lunch we go for a drive and visit a family friend, have some lunch and warm up by the wood stove before heading back to the fields.
After lunch we decide to switch spots and hopefully those does will come back and i'll be able to get a shot, but same as in the morning, within half an hour i get a message that he's got another 5 or 6 does over by him. This time i don't waste any time, grab my gun and start heading over to where i was sitting all morning. I get almost over to him and just come over the hill in time to see the white tails heading up the tree line and into the woods. When they came out they walked the tree line and were standing 10 yards from him before they saw him and he stayed as still as he cook, but they didn't like the looks of him from that close and he got to experience the full range of deer when they see you. They stamped their feet, did the fake lower their head down as if they're going to eat then pop up all of a sudden and see if you move, blowed and barked, circled around a few times, even took a few more steps towards him to get a better look and finally got sketched out enough to head back to the trees.
So now i'm super hot and sweaty from running up the hill to get there just too late and wondering what i am missing at my spot, so i turn around and head back to the cut corn field. I get there, set up with a camp chair and bipod. I tucked myself behind some alders and tall grass with the brook at my back. The alders block the left side of the field, but i can see through it enough with my binoculars to see anything coming from that tree line and i have the the middle and right hand side of the field in good view. I'm hoping that anything that comes out to the left will work across the field enough to get a good shot, but what happens? Three or 4 does come out from the left about 70 yards away and just hang out there, feed around a bit and don't really do much, but they seem pretty comfortable and don't look like they're going to leave any time soon. I watch them for 5 or 10 minutes and they come a bit closer and just as they look like they're moving out to where i could get a shot the wind swirls. All of a sudden heads come up, they snort, run 10-20 yards away and start scanning the edge where i am. they didn't see me because they were looking in the wrong spot and just scanning around trying to figure out what they smelled, but they must have smelled me again and put up the tails and went back to where they came out.
Seeing how my alder spot wasn't cutting it i moved my setup, tucked my chair into a big patch of goldenrod at the right edge of the field where i can watch that left side where i blew my chances earlier and hoped that a different group might wander out before dark. i sit there for the rest of the evening though and don't get any more chances. This new spot is quite low and the field really rolls with lots of tops and bottoms the whole way down, so about 45 minutes before the sun goes down i see some movement, but it's 400yards away, barely visible behind one of the humps, skylined and in the direction of some nearby houses, so it was a non issues and i just watched them through my binoculars until it got dark and headed back for the truck.
While this was happening in the grass field the does came back out, looking right at where they saw my friend earlier and got just close enough to see if he was still there and moved back into the trees. They hung out just inside the treeline waiting for him to leave for almost an hour watching him before they decide to go somewhere else.
Day two and we have a new plan. I am going to head to the corn for first light, my friend is headed for the grass field, but picking a different spot in a line of spruce trees. As i am heading to the end of the corn field you need to pass by the bottom end of another small grass field. The day before there were no deer here at any point through the day that we saw so tried to be quiet walking past, but wasn't as careful as i should have been. I come around the corner of the road and in the twilight/moonlight i see what looks like a two or three brown blobs in the field like 30 yards away. I stop, back up a bit and crouch down. I am thinking i can crawl up a bit, set up and wait for light to try and get a shot, but i was either seen, smelled or heard because they started moving turned around and headed up the hill and away. They didn't snort or blow or anything, but they definitely wanted to get out of the area. After the 3 indistinct blobs were far enough away i pick up my stuff and continue to my corn field, now behind schedule and it's starting to get lighter out. As i fully step out from the smaller alders i was behind there was another doe in the corner that had stayed that i didn't see and she made me big time, blowing, run 20 yards, stop and blow again, did this 5 or 6 times and this is all within 50 or so yards of my target corn field.
At this point i'm cursing my luck, i blew my morning chance, all the deer that heard that are going to be gone, but i still try and be quiet walking through the brook and over to the corn field. It's now legal shooting time so i take my rifle out of the case, load it and put on the safety as quietly as i can and continue on my way. Just like a few minutes ago as i come around the corner there's another 3 does, much easier to see as it gets lighter and they're all looking right at me. Busted.
Again i slowly lower myself to the ground and off to the side so i'm behind some taller grass, quietly set all my stuff down and slowly try and open up my bipod, get it up to a position i can use it, but it's way too high for how i am crouched down on the ground. I try to make the best of a bad situation and grab one leg of the bipod with my left hand and slowly bring my rifle up and rest it on my hand and raise up just enough to see the closest doe and try and stay as still as i can.
Luckily this one wants to see what i am and doesn't immediately turn and run, but she's totally head on to me. Over the next 5 minutes or so she stamps, steps towards me, tries to fake lower her head and pretend to feed and snap up and all the things they do, getting closer and closer all the time. Finally as my leg was starting to shake from sitting in the weird half crouched raised up position where i was sitting on my boot the way i lowered down sideways she starts to walk a bit to the side to try and see around my grass clump and turns enough sideways that i can get a decent quartering to shot.
I pull the trigger and she crumples right in place. I've never had a bang flop before. I've had plenty that don't make it very far, good blood trails, etc, but they've always ran some ways before they crashed, but this time it's all over before the echo of the shot is gone.
Surprisingly the other two does with her ran a few yards, but then just kind of stood there trying to figure out what happened. Where she just fell straight down they almost seemed to think that nothing was really that wrong if she was just going to lay there and not run away. I watched them for a couple of minutes before i stood up and after seeing me stand up they took off, but if i had a second tag i could have easily gotten a double, which is kind of ironic after the first days frustration.
After that it was the work part, clean her out, get her registered, skinned, etc before dropping her off the the butcher. When i paced it out afterword she was around 35 yards away and the heart, which i was going to keep was just a pile of mush and totally unusable, so it's no wonder she didn't go far.
As we were skinning her i did find the bullet. It was the 150 grain federal power shock, mushroomed out nicely, all of the jacket seems like it's there, but maybe missing some lead. I was a little surprised it wasn't a complete pass through at that close of a distance. It did break the front leg bone going in, hit the heart and lungs and took out a rib on the other side but hang up just inside the hide .
So that's my long winded story, still almost can't believe how things ended up working out so well this morning, but i guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.
I had two days off this week, the first week of rifle season for deer and drew an antlerless deer tag for the zone i hunt, so if it was brown and walking i was planning on taking the first shot that presented itself to get some meat in the freezer.
Day one a friend and i who is pretty new to hunting set up in the different fields owned by a friends uncle. Most of the fields are just clover/grass for cattle feed, but this year one of them was planted with corn and cut a while ago, but there's plenty of missed cobs and new green growing up in between the cut corn rows. I let my friend have the corn field since it's likely the best chance of seeing deer and also not as long of a shot. He's comfortable out to 100 yards, but much past that he hasn't practised enough yet to be comfortable with it. He didn't draw an antlerless tag, so he's looking for a buck, and being his first deer he wants it to be a buck anyway.
I went with the hayfield with a big corner that cuts into the woods that i've had success at before. We have an old brush blind we made years ago that's long fallen down that i still sneak into the wreckage of and am in enough of a shadow that you don't get spotted unless the deer get real close or you're moving around a lot.
Opening day we get to the farm well before light, quietly head our separate ways and get settled in for the sun to come up. Within 25 minutes of legal shooting time he sends me a picture of 6 does in his field between 50-80 yards away and the debate comes up in my mind, do i bail on my spot and try and sneak over there before the deer move on or get spooked, or do i stick it out and keep to my original plan? I decide to just sit tight because with my luck i'd stand up, some deer i didn't see would bust me and blow and let every other deer on my side of the hill know to stay away, and then by the time i got over there they would probably have moved on anyway.
Well you can guess that i made the wrong choice. I sit all morning and see absolutely nothing and those does stick around for almost an hour before they make their way out of the field. At lunch we go for a drive and visit a family friend, have some lunch and warm up by the wood stove before heading back to the fields.
After lunch we decide to switch spots and hopefully those does will come back and i'll be able to get a shot, but same as in the morning, within half an hour i get a message that he's got another 5 or 6 does over by him. This time i don't waste any time, grab my gun and start heading over to where i was sitting all morning. I get almost over to him and just come over the hill in time to see the white tails heading up the tree line and into the woods. When they came out they walked the tree line and were standing 10 yards from him before they saw him and he stayed as still as he cook, but they didn't like the looks of him from that close and he got to experience the full range of deer when they see you. They stamped their feet, did the fake lower their head down as if they're going to eat then pop up all of a sudden and see if you move, blowed and barked, circled around a few times, even took a few more steps towards him to get a better look and finally got sketched out enough to head back to the trees.
So now i'm super hot and sweaty from running up the hill to get there just too late and wondering what i am missing at my spot, so i turn around and head back to the cut corn field. I get there, set up with a camp chair and bipod. I tucked myself behind some alders and tall grass with the brook at my back. The alders block the left side of the field, but i can see through it enough with my binoculars to see anything coming from that tree line and i have the the middle and right hand side of the field in good view. I'm hoping that anything that comes out to the left will work across the field enough to get a good shot, but what happens? Three or 4 does come out from the left about 70 yards away and just hang out there, feed around a bit and don't really do much, but they seem pretty comfortable and don't look like they're going to leave any time soon. I watch them for 5 or 10 minutes and they come a bit closer and just as they look like they're moving out to where i could get a shot the wind swirls. All of a sudden heads come up, they snort, run 10-20 yards away and start scanning the edge where i am. they didn't see me because they were looking in the wrong spot and just scanning around trying to figure out what they smelled, but they must have smelled me again and put up the tails and went back to where they came out.
Seeing how my alder spot wasn't cutting it i moved my setup, tucked my chair into a big patch of goldenrod at the right edge of the field where i can watch that left side where i blew my chances earlier and hoped that a different group might wander out before dark. i sit there for the rest of the evening though and don't get any more chances. This new spot is quite low and the field really rolls with lots of tops and bottoms the whole way down, so about 45 minutes before the sun goes down i see some movement, but it's 400yards away, barely visible behind one of the humps, skylined and in the direction of some nearby houses, so it was a non issues and i just watched them through my binoculars until it got dark and headed back for the truck.
While this was happening in the grass field the does came back out, looking right at where they saw my friend earlier and got just close enough to see if he was still there and moved back into the trees. They hung out just inside the treeline waiting for him to leave for almost an hour watching him before they decide to go somewhere else.
Day two and we have a new plan. I am going to head to the corn for first light, my friend is headed for the grass field, but picking a different spot in a line of spruce trees. As i am heading to the end of the corn field you need to pass by the bottom end of another small grass field. The day before there were no deer here at any point through the day that we saw so tried to be quiet walking past, but wasn't as careful as i should have been. I come around the corner of the road and in the twilight/moonlight i see what looks like a two or three brown blobs in the field like 30 yards away. I stop, back up a bit and crouch down. I am thinking i can crawl up a bit, set up and wait for light to try and get a shot, but i was either seen, smelled or heard because they started moving turned around and headed up the hill and away. They didn't snort or blow or anything, but they definitely wanted to get out of the area. After the 3 indistinct blobs were far enough away i pick up my stuff and continue to my corn field, now behind schedule and it's starting to get lighter out. As i fully step out from the smaller alders i was behind there was another doe in the corner that had stayed that i didn't see and she made me big time, blowing, run 20 yards, stop and blow again, did this 5 or 6 times and this is all within 50 or so yards of my target corn field.
At this point i'm cursing my luck, i blew my morning chance, all the deer that heard that are going to be gone, but i still try and be quiet walking through the brook and over to the corn field. It's now legal shooting time so i take my rifle out of the case, load it and put on the safety as quietly as i can and continue on my way. Just like a few minutes ago as i come around the corner there's another 3 does, much easier to see as it gets lighter and they're all looking right at me. Busted.
Again i slowly lower myself to the ground and off to the side so i'm behind some taller grass, quietly set all my stuff down and slowly try and open up my bipod, get it up to a position i can use it, but it's way too high for how i am crouched down on the ground. I try to make the best of a bad situation and grab one leg of the bipod with my left hand and slowly bring my rifle up and rest it on my hand and raise up just enough to see the closest doe and try and stay as still as i can.
Luckily this one wants to see what i am and doesn't immediately turn and run, but she's totally head on to me. Over the next 5 minutes or so she stamps, steps towards me, tries to fake lower her head and pretend to feed and snap up and all the things they do, getting closer and closer all the time. Finally as my leg was starting to shake from sitting in the weird half crouched raised up position where i was sitting on my boot the way i lowered down sideways she starts to walk a bit to the side to try and see around my grass clump and turns enough sideways that i can get a decent quartering to shot.
I pull the trigger and she crumples right in place. I've never had a bang flop before. I've had plenty that don't make it very far, good blood trails, etc, but they've always ran some ways before they crashed, but this time it's all over before the echo of the shot is gone.
Surprisingly the other two does with her ran a few yards, but then just kind of stood there trying to figure out what happened. Where she just fell straight down they almost seemed to think that nothing was really that wrong if she was just going to lay there and not run away. I watched them for a couple of minutes before i stood up and after seeing me stand up they took off, but if i had a second tag i could have easily gotten a double, which is kind of ironic after the first days frustration.
After that it was the work part, clean her out, get her registered, skinned, etc before dropping her off the the butcher. When i paced it out afterword she was around 35 yards away and the heart, which i was going to keep was just a pile of mush and totally unusable, so it's no wonder she didn't go far.
As we were skinning her i did find the bullet. It was the 150 grain federal power shock, mushroomed out nicely, all of the jacket seems like it's there, but maybe missing some lead. I was a little surprised it wasn't a complete pass through at that close of a distance. It did break the front leg bone going in, hit the heart and lungs and took out a rib on the other side but hang up just inside the hide .
So that's my long winded story, still almost can't believe how things ended up working out so well this morning, but i guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.
