Well I went out with my stepson (Chris, 19) this morning before dawn. We set up in the middle of 4 trees growing up together. I've set up there before when bow hunting and knew the deer liked the area. It sits right at the bottom of the hill from my main piece of timber which would be to the west. There's a tree and brush covered ditch leading down the hill from the timber to the main creekbed feeding my pond from the north. The trees we were right where the 2 join. With pastures on both sides (south and west to northwest). The deer like to move through the pastures to the ditch and then up into the timber in the morning. And vise versa in the afternoons. Anyway, we got setup right at first light and weren't there but about 10 minutes. The wind was out of the northeast, not good for one pasture but excellent for the other. I was hoping they would come from the north along the main creekbed towards us. But, deer being what they are, 3 does came from the pond up the main creek towards us (from the southeast) then turned across the pasture to go up the ditch. They almost got into shooting position and the wind shifted straight out of the north right to them. SNORT! BLOW! SNORT! SNORT! and they took off back towards the southeast. Well I figured "that's it! We're done" But something told me to hang out for a minute to see if something did come in from the north liked I hoped. About 3 minutes after we got winded the same 3 does came back across the pasture just the same way they did before! This time the wind had shifted a little more to the east so it wasn't blowing straight at them. The lead doe got about 35 to 40 yards away heading left to right, Chris leveled the 12 gauge with rifled slug and steadied himself against the tree he was standing behind. The does were nervous and kept looking in our direction but could not make us out. BLAM! Chris hit her good. She dropped right there. the other 2 took off back to the southeast and circled around up to the west along our south fenceline. Then I saw Chris' doe jump up and start trotting after the other 2! I pointed to it and Chris fired again. This time at more like 100 yards. She rolled over got up and started running full bore. We let her go for about 45 minutes and started tracking. When we last saw her she was headed west towards the timber. So I figured that's where she went. So far we've tracked her 1/4 mile and she didn't go into the timber. She jumped our south fenceline and is heading accross an open field. I think she's following the other 2 does. If you were to continue on her path you would climb up over a small ridge and go down into a small patch of heavy brush (about another 1/4 mile) then another fenceline and another treeline ditch leading down to another pond. The other does could have taken off in that direction. I had to come back in to warm up. The place I described Chris shooting that deer is only 200 yards behind my house. Going back out to finish the track. It's only 26 degrees out this morning with a wind chill of 16. But I'm getting good practice in tracking anyway. Keep you posted.


KEEP IT LEGAL. KEEP IT SAFE. OR WE MAY NOT GET TO KEEP IT AT ALL.