This story was referred to in another thread so I though I'd repost my account here.
I had one of the more interesting hunts I ever have had opening day this year. Only one shot presented itself early, a decent buck at 282 yds. I hesitated and he bolted, so it was probably good I didn't fire. After sitting until about 10am, I was cold and decided to still-hunt down the creek I was sitting on. I hadn't gone far when I saw a nice buck standing on the ditch 1/4 mile away, and watched him disappear into the ditch. The only way to get to him would be to crawl across the field. I decided to leave my peep sight equipped ML behind and take the one scoped for long range work since I didn't want to be helpless if he popped up when I was halfway across.
An hour later, tired and cut up, I reached the far side. Two does ran up, and I decided that since the buck could have slipped out I'd shoot one if they presented an opportunity. By the time I crossed the ditch and set up, the biggest was bedded 200 yds out with another adult and a yearling standing. When the lead doe stood back up at 209 yds, the scope was dialed up and I sent the 200gr Shockwave downrange. When the smoke cleared, only 2 deer were standing and they were apparently unconcerned that the matriarch had decided to lie down again. I rolled on my back, reloaded, and ranged the 2nd doe at 180 yds. I took some clicks back off, and down she went.
As I reloaded for a second time in 2 minutes, I realized a guy was in a treestand 300 yds away watching the whole thing. Rifles are illegal here so I figured he was scratching his head pretty good and I got a chuckle out of that. I decided the buck must have bugged out with the shooting if he'd still been there, but reset the scope, bottomed out the magnification, and snuck down 80 yds to his last location to check. The decent 8-pt exploded from an impossibly small patch of grass at my feet, and I struggled to get a lead on him at 20 yds and 3.5X but managed. I fired and he rolled, scratch 3 in 5 minutes.
I reloaded, went and marked the does on my GPS quickly and returned to the buck. As I climbed out of the ditch I realized 2 more does were standing 300 yards away near where I started my crawl. I dropped down and ranged one at 302 and clicked up for that, but it jogged down further and I ranged at 338 and added a few more clicks. A very light breeze from the right, I held about 6 inches right and fired. I recovered from the recoil and the smoke cleared just enough to see her roll in her tracks, about 20 minutes from when I started shooting.
It's not often I get a day calm enough to be shooting that far, but I'd put in the time on my 400yd backyard range to be comfortable doing it. I recovered one bullet, from the 209 yd shot, under the offside skin after breaking both shoulder blades. All others were pass-thrus. I was impressed to still see expansion and pass-thru penetration past 300 yds.
The guy from the treestand waited almost an hour by my truck to find out what I was shooting. He knew I was hunting a game warden's land and it couldn't be a rifle. I'm told he spread a bit of a tale in the neighborhood, I'm sure by next year someone will be asking my about my half mile shot or something similar.
