And itonly took him
55 years to do it.
Well Monday Morning was opening morning of the PA rifle season. Like we've done for the past couple of years, my Dad, Grandpa, and I headed down to some property my Grandpa owns in Crawford County. During the summer my Dad and I had been working hard to improve the hunting on the land. We increased the number of stands from 4 to 8, and we planted more soybeans, corn, and clover in the fields. We began to notice big changes during archery season when our deer sightings skyrocketed. I saw 6 different bucks, along with about a zillion does. My Dad had 13 deer in the field one night. Mind you, this is about a 1 acre plot on about 20 arces of land.
I had seen a lot of deer traffic infront of one of my favorite stands. A ladder situated in a nice funnel between some think pines, hadwoods, and some fields. This is the only place that offers an easy place for the deer to cross a creek with high ridge lines.
To make the story short, I put my Grandpa in the stand opening morning to see if he could take his first deer. Due to unfortunate luck...he has never been able to take a shot at adeer...let alone get one in all of his years hunting. Finally around 8:30 or so, a doe came infront of him, but due to a risky shot he passed. (She was only five yards away). The doe circled up to within 20 yds of me...(I wouldhave been able to take her with my bow..but I had already taken a doe in archery)..and for some unknown reason became nervous. She then swappen ends and trotted back past my Grandpa. The doe crossed an opening but he could get her to stop until she was in between two pine trees. With a 6 inch hole he took the shot. Due to a wiggle on his part he hit the tree. He informed me of this and I went down just to make sure, because he wasn't exactly thinking clearly. I came down and discovered that the bullet sliced through the tree and drilled the doe. We soon began to trail her and 60 yds later we found her....IN THE MIDDLE OF A FROZEN POND!!! So instead of just hunting...we got to go fishing too!!
I haven't quite figured out what happened to the bullet. It left a large entrance hole behind the ribs..(the stomach was actually forced out that hole) and left a tiny exit hole. He did double lung her and some fragmented lead touched her heart. I'm thinking the bullet exploded and most of it hit in one spot creating the 3 inch entrance, and only one peice was big enough to exit.
He was using his late brother-in-laws Savage 99 in .308 with Rem. Corelokt 150 PSP.
MY GRANDPA'S FIRST DEER!!!
