Day 2 of gun season in Ohio.
I went out yesterday for opening day and sat for about 2 hrs in the morning, and 2.5hrs in the afternoon. It was 34 degrees and a mix of sideways rain and fine mist and I was sitting in a 16ft ladder stand facing into the wind and was kind of miserable. I saw 2 deer just after daylight. First was a decent bodied buck that came tearing out of the woods and crossed the beanfield I was hunting about 200 yards south of me. He never slowed down, and went right on out of sight.
20 minutes later a fat little doe, probably a yearling, came out south of me and somewhat behind me on the neighbors property. She was downwind of me and had her head up and was stomping one foot. She did her dance for about 5 minutes and then wandered off slowly.
So today, it is in the mid 30's and dreary and damp but no rain. I put on as many layers as I could wear and still climb the ladder on my stand. We're legal to hunt from half an hr before sunrise to half an hr after, and I drug my feet today and got in the stand at 7:28 today, with sunrise being at 7:31. I had barely sat down and a group of deer came into view in the far northeast corner of the field. I am about halfway down the west edge. I watched them mill around, 6 of them altogether, and eventually they end up bunched up 200 yds away from me. They were in a shooting lane, but I didn't really want to shoot more then 150 yds and the light was still really bad despite being legal. So I sat and watched and they all started to troop down the middle of the field heading south. Their track put them about 150 yards from me, but they were moving steadily, and even more difficult to see once they got out of the grass and into the chiseled ground. I started to bring the gun up a couple times but eventually decided to let them walk.
So I'm sitting there watching, hoping they will change course, and wouldn't you know it the last deer in the group, which was also the biggest, broke off at the edge of the field and headed west instead of following the group. I found it in my scope and it ended up being a buck. I tracked him with the scope, trying to find a shot, but he was right on the edge of my range and walking steadily. When he got to the fence row I thought I was going to lose him but he turned and came south straight towards me. He continued walking slowly with his head up and I kept him in the scope hoping he would turn broadside at some point. Eventually when he was 40 yards away I decided he wasn't going to turn and that if I waited any longer he would go right under me and I'd lose him. So I held just above his chest and shot him in the neck. He dropped and didn't even twitch, literally a bang flop. 7:35 am.
Gun was a Ruger American in 450 bushmaster, topped with a redfield revolution 3-9x40 scope. I used the newish hornady american whitetail ammo with 245 grain interlock sp bullets. This was my 2nd attempt with hornady after having an ftx bullet come apart last year (none of the local stores stock anything but hornady). While it did put this guy down with authority, I could not find an exit wound and did not recover the bullet while field dressing so I am thinking it broke up on impact.
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. I'm not a passionate hunter but I do like the learning opportunities that hunting presents. I typically learn a number of things each time I go out. I think I hunt to test my equipment and my state of readiness which always seems to be lacking. This time out I learned that easing the bolt forward is not a good idea for that rifle. I also learned that a deer that's 260 yards away from the muzzle can feel like it's a mile away when you have to scale a "cliff" to recover him.
