@ Phat head: You know...I am starting to think your right on this.


@ Breachplug: I see what your saying. I guess I need to rephrase what happened.

When having shot at this deer at almost 120 yards with using a scope on 4 power and wind to my backside, the shot was obscured by the muzzy smoke. And since I did not have my gun on a rest (shot off my knee from stand) I was not entirely sure I hit the deer where I put the cross-hairs.

I'm a pretty good shot and practice year round, but my heart rate always goes up at trigger time.

That being said, my only clue to the deer being pierced was that while he was exiting the field his head was very low. Equal to the tarsals. And we know as hunters, that deer do not run from danger with their head low.

I thought my advantage on the deeply wet and mushy soy field would be to see some blood from a pass-through, showing up on the 1/2 inch of snow that covered the black ground. To my chagrin, no blood.

I had to keep sharply focused out to 120 yards to find the only track amongst 2000 tracks that exited purposely in the retreat direction.

I also had the challenge of following him through one of many pig pen troughs leading to the woods. This is an area with a lot of deer.

The fact that the hollow point created no blood had me scratching my head. I am not one to blame equipment. The XTP is sound and has an excellent track record. Therefore, I began to doubt myself, that maybe I had not struck my intended pray do to shooter error.

But one thing lingered in my mind. That low head getaway.

A new challenge faced me when I finally found the dominant track. Freezing wet snow (like rain) began to descend over all the tracks. With no blood, and with the trail being covered quickly by snow I became as the deer and pretended to run like him.

I knew I had less than a half-in-hour to find this deer before having to come out with a search party the next morning to grid walk it. Imagine trying to find a deer in the woods when even it may be covered by 6 inches of snow? That's what came that night.

It was only after being 50 yards on to the trail that I could see hairspray mist (blood red in the snow).

Pin head blood. The kind that tells you to get back to the shooting range before hunting again. The kind of blood that says, you will be tracking all day tomorrow with friends. The kind that say's you might only have kissed him and he will live another day while you replay the shot 1000 times over in your mind.

Thankfully he crashed just outside a thicket. You could see where he desperately tried to get to solid cover. His body shinned on the moonlit snow.

However, to my amazement, I looked at the entrance and exit wound. It was picture perfect shot. Dead center of the lungs. But no blood at all from the exit wound. The exit hole is the same size diameter of the XTP before it was fired.

Thus, where my story ends, and then begins again. Was it the bullet? Was it Blackhorn 209? Was it a freak occurrence?

Maybe it was the latter. Them deer are Just TOUGH!

D