One more, though some of you may remember this one as it was one of the first posts I made on this forum.

Two seasons ago, I was hunting a creek bank about 400 yards from another ditchline. I was not very familiar with the property so expected the deer to run the creek.

It turned out they liked that other ditch better. I spotted some does bedded down on it, and at one point a nice buck stuck his head up, then went back down in the ditch. It was mid-morning, I was having no luck so it was either go after that buck or go home empty-handed.

I had my long range Omega and X7 both with me. I would have to crawl 1/4 mile on my belly through corn stubble to get to him, so I wanted the X7 with peep sights to shoot him on the run when I jumped him up close. However, if he got up while I was halfway across and presented a shot it would be useless. So I left it behind and took the thumbhole.

A couple does ran through as I crossed, but I let them go. It took me over an hour to work myself across that field and about 40 yards up the ditch from where I'd seen the buck. I realized it was just as likely that buck was gone as still there, I would not have seen him go.

As luck would have it, my sling broke and I turned left to catch the rifle as it fell from my back. I saw 3 does running up the ditch at me, and decided to shoot one as the buck was likely gone and I needed the meat. However they crossed the ditch, so I did to. By the time I got up on a small rise they were grazing on corn stubble. The biggest doe, the matriarch, was lying down. I waited patiently for awhile until she got back up, at 209 yards. The scope was already dialed up, so I shot for the shoulder and she dropped. The other two deer ran in a circle but, as their leader was obviously not disturbed and lying back down, they calmed down and went back to grazing.

I rolled on my back and reloaded on the ground. When I rolled back to shooting position, I ranged the second doe at 180 yards. I backed off the elevation on the scope and fired, and down she went. I rolled on my back and reloaded again, and the third one was still there. I judged her to be a yearling, too small to shoot, and let her go.

I stood up for the first time in an hour and a half, and decided to sneak 30 yards down the ditch just to find where the buck had been hiding. Fortunately, I dialed the magnification on my scope back to minimum. As I approached where the buck had been, he exploded from an impossibly tiny piece of grass and my feed. He and about 6-8 does blew across the ditch and into the open field as I frantically shouldered my rifle and looked for him in my scope. I found brown, managed to identify the front shoulder even at 3X and 20 yards, and fired. He rolled, and I started to reflexively reload. He made a move to get back up however, so I jumped across and used my Glock for good measure (wasn't really needed as it turned out). he was a nice 8-pt.

Very happy with the day, I went and took 20 min to locate and mark the does on my GPS. Then I returned to the buck. As I crossed the ditch, I noticed 2 does back across by the creek where I'd started my crawl. I dropped to my belly and ranged the largest one at 338 yards. There was virtually no wind, so I dialed my scope up to the appropriate elevation and took aim (for those unfamiliar, I regularly practice out to 400 yards with this ML). I carefully squeezed off the shot and the rifle barked. I had time to recover from the recoil and see the impact through my scope, she went right down.

The property owner, already on his way over from the other side of the property to help with the other deer, said he heard the impact first and the shot a full second later.

The best part of the whole story is there way a guy about 300-400 yards away in a treestand who watched the whole thing, from the crawl until the last deer. He knew I was hunting on a conservation officer's land so he could not figure out what I was shooting that far with (rifles illegal). He went around and waited by my truck for an hour to find out.

He must have spread the story like wildfire, within a month the property owner told me he'd heard the story come back around but the range had stretched to 800 yards!