Never did find out what happend to that poor buck prior to me putting him down. At the time we figured that it had been gut shot and never recovered but to be honest, we really dont know. Could have been a wound from a barbed wire fence that got infected or who knows what elseit could have been. Its too bad he had to wait for me to put him down, im sure he was in pain. As for the sight, yup, my own stupidity. I was 16 and my first hunt. I pay a lot more attention to those (not so minor) details now to prevent that sort of thing happening again.

One more story. Upstate/Western NY. Have to use a shotgun, no rifles. We put a Hastings barrel on our 870s cuz the Hastings barrel is rifled and we shot BRI 3" Mag .50 cal saboted slugs out of our 12 guages. Nice combo. My hunting buddy Steve was out on opening day one year and about a half hour after sunrise, I hear him shoot. Then about 5 min. later I hear another shot. I figure its a finishing shot. I stay in my stand and wait to see if he comes out of the woods and about 10 min later he did. Empty handed. I come out of my stand and meet him in the middle of the field he was walking through. Asked him what happened and he, nonchalantly told me he got a small buck butit was in the thickand needed some help dragging it out. So we walk into the woods and get to his stand and he stops. Im looking around and I dont see any buck. He just stands there grinning. I look at him, he looks away to his right and about 25 yards away is a big ole Tom. Must havehad a 7" beard, big ole spikes, a very nice bird. Head was missing. He shot that bird with a deer slug right on the mark at 25yds. I was impressed. So I figured that was that and started to walk to the bird. He says, wait, we need to get the deer. I says, you got a turkey and a deer? He says yup, lets go. We walk about 75 yds from his stand and I see it. It was a monster. 12 pt White Tail. Hole right behind the shoulder, bang flop. Remmington 870 12 gauge, 75 yds, BRI 3" Mag .50 saboted deer slug. Nice friggen shot, on both animals. He tookthe turkey first and just let it lay and then the real trophy was taken 5 min later.