Deer season opened yesterday. I had picked a spot for my stand where DH and I had seen a herd of six deer a few weeks ago. DH took the big permanent stand that we inherited from the previous owner, and our friend Bill put up his portable stand on the other side of the river.
Official opening time here was 6:21am. I started hearing shots around 6:14am (not from our group)- I don't know what the heck they were shooting at cause it was so dark and foggy I couldn't see 10 feet in front of my stand!
DH got the first deer- a nice little buck. Neither Bill nor I even saw a deer. I came in early because I did not expect to see any deer during the daytime. DH came in to clean and hang his buck, then we both went back out in the late afternoon.
I sat and sat and sat without so much as a glimpse of a deer, but Bill had bow hunted in the same field a few weeks earlier and reported seeing deer just before dusk, so I waited some more. Finally saw a buck wander into the field. I watched him for a bit before I lined up on him. I got a good bead on him and fired- just as I fired he leaned back a little. I hit him, but he did not go down right away. He kind of somersaulted then ran towards the back of our property. I was distracted for a moment trying to put on my safety- new rifle this year, first time hunting with it and in my excitement I forgot that I had to eject the spent shell first. I looked down, got the safety on, and when I looked back up my buck was gone
I wandered around trying to find him with no luck. Right after I shot him I heard more shots from the north side of the adjoining property and I feared that he had run right into another hunting party and been shot again. That would not have been so bad, but I was even more afraid that I had wounded him and lost him. I went back to the house and waited for DH, then we went back out, soon joined by Bill, and tried to find the buck. Finally found the spot where he was standing when hit- I had miscalculated and was looking just west of where he had actually been. Found the blood trail and followed it- found him about 15 feet on the other side of our fence- the fence (which we inherited from the previous owner) had been pulled down by falling trees till it was only a foot or so off the ground- if the fence had been intact the buck would not have made it over and would have died on our side. But, he made it over, just.
I was very happy to see that my shot hit almost exactly where I had been aiming- maybe two inches back because of his leaning when I shot. So, one shot, through the lungs, and I got him. I had sighted in the rifle at 150 yards, and this shot was just a little less than that distance, so it worked out well.
When I told DH that I had shot a buck he asked how big and I estimated 8 points. I was close- he WOULD have been an 8 pointer but he was missing one entire antler!!! so I guess he was technically a 4 pointer. But I was happy to get him- he was an older buck and time for him to get out of the gene pool.
Of course, wouldn't you know, we have a long season this year- 9 days, as they are trying to whittle down the deer population around here. We were only planning to take 3 deer, MOL depending on size, to fill our freezers. I think DH might have gotten another one this morning- if so, I guess deer season is over for us for this year. But that's ok, cause we can hunt pheasant until the end of December.
