I think I may have set a new record yesterday. The law in Md is that you must kill two antlerless deer before you can shoot a second buck. With that in mind I decided to put the first two antlerless deer I saw in my freezer and then get serious about hunting horns. I spotted a young deer at about 100 yards and took her down. At the shot a second one jumped up and ran about 50 yards before stopping to look back. I only had seconds to put the cross hairs on her and drop the hammer. The 25-06 barked and she was done.

When I got up to her I could not believe how small she was. After field dressing she only weighed 28 pounds. Yes, you read it right, on November 25 she still was only 28 pounds. I noticed, when I was field dressing her, that her liver was about half the normal size, off color and of a wierd texture. When I mentioned this to my wife, a veterinarian, she said that it probably had a liver shunt which kept if from developing and would likely not have survived the winter.

I am very happy with the off hand shot that took out such a small target at 150 yards, and I am glad that the little thing won't suffer through the winter, but I will never forget my shock and surprise when I walked up on her and saw her diminutive size. Has anyone ever killed a deer so small this far into the season?