Also known as: Yesterday.
The previous thread got me thinking. It was a slow season this year, the only big buck I saw would not give me a good shot to work with, brush was just too heavy, he went by on the "wrong" trail both times, so I resigned myself to stop waiting for something better as I've done in the past on opening weekend and just get meat yesterday. About a half hour to sundown I catch two antlerless (one turned out to be a spike, it was hard to see with the sun setting behind them) deer on a corn field, mosey-ing past one another. I passed on a lot of shots, including the buck, because I don't like to risk it with shots that might only wound. But this was just too perfect, and I'm aware how the bullets I shoot have a tendency to just zip right through whitetails. I waited until the one up front turned back towards the one behind and took a few steps. As their shoulders were crossing I let one off. Front guy went up in the air about 4 feet, doe in the back went down like a sack of potatoes. Spike was staggering but turned to walk away, so I gave him the dreaded "Texas Brain Shot" and he keeled over. Didn't want to, but I was rushing to put a hit on him so he wouldn't go in the woods and down the steep hill to who knows where if he had anything left in him. Wouldn't have mattered as I found out. Double-lunged him. The bullet had begun to mushroom and the entrance wound on the doe was much more pronounced. She was at a steeper angle than I'd thought, but the bullet did a beautiful job of turning the heart to mush and did a fair bit of damage to the ribs on her opposite side. I thought I had closed to within 200, but I paced it off at around 210. This was with a 30-06 using Remington Premier Accutip 165gr Boattails. Good thing I took this plan, too, because I had to cut the season a little shorter - a lot shorter - than last year's, and I didn't see a darn thing this morning. Meat in the freezer, that's the important thing! I know some people might think doing this on purpose is iffy, but I was pretty sure about it all, I stared at it for a long time before lining it up, and the job got done on both about as effectively as I could ever ask for on one.
Funny thing, too, I'd asked my girlfriend to watch this field for deer around sundown. She was on the second floor looking at them through the window with a spotting scope, unaware I was in the brush up the field about 500 yards. She just saw the one keel over before she saw the shot, then saw the other go down a couple seconds later. When I got back to my bag I had a text message, "Holy crap was that you?"
FYI, I had 3 tags, filled 2, it was on private land and it's a herd-reduction zone where you can buy infinite antlerless tags at $2 a pop, in Western Wisconsin, for those concerned about those sort of things.
The previous thread got me thinking. It was a slow season this year, the only big buck I saw would not give me a good shot to work with, brush was just too heavy, he went by on the "wrong" trail both times, so I resigned myself to stop waiting for something better as I've done in the past on opening weekend and just get meat yesterday. About a half hour to sundown I catch two antlerless (one turned out to be a spike, it was hard to see with the sun setting behind them) deer on a corn field, mosey-ing past one another. I passed on a lot of shots, including the buck, because I don't like to risk it with shots that might only wound. But this was just too perfect, and I'm aware how the bullets I shoot have a tendency to just zip right through whitetails. I waited until the one up front turned back towards the one behind and took a few steps. As their shoulders were crossing I let one off. Front guy went up in the air about 4 feet, doe in the back went down like a sack of potatoes. Spike was staggering but turned to walk away, so I gave him the dreaded "Texas Brain Shot" and he keeled over. Didn't want to, but I was rushing to put a hit on him so he wouldn't go in the woods and down the steep hill to who knows where if he had anything left in him. Wouldn't have mattered as I found out. Double-lunged him. The bullet had begun to mushroom and the entrance wound on the doe was much more pronounced. She was at a steeper angle than I'd thought, but the bullet did a beautiful job of turning the heart to mush and did a fair bit of damage to the ribs on her opposite side. I thought I had closed to within 200, but I paced it off at around 210. This was with a 30-06 using Remington Premier Accutip 165gr Boattails. Good thing I took this plan, too, because I had to cut the season a little shorter - a lot shorter - than last year's, and I didn't see a darn thing this morning. Meat in the freezer, that's the important thing! I know some people might think doing this on purpose is iffy, but I was pretty sure about it all, I stared at it for a long time before lining it up, and the job got done on both about as effectively as I could ever ask for on one.
Funny thing, too, I'd asked my girlfriend to watch this field for deer around sundown. She was on the second floor looking at them through the window with a spotting scope, unaware I was in the brush up the field about 500 yards. She just saw the one keel over before she saw the shot, then saw the other go down a couple seconds later. When I got back to my bag I had a text message, "Holy crap was that you?"
FYI, I had 3 tags, filled 2, it was on private land and it's a herd-reduction zone where you can buy infinite antlerless tags at $2 a pop, in Western Wisconsin, for those concerned about those sort of things.
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