First and foremost, I profusely appologize for not having pictures. I am usually very good about that, but my cell phone died and I forgot my regular camrera at home.

Opening morning of Ohio's gun season found me 20 feet up in a tree. I saw 3 deer within 45 minutes of sitting down in the stand. I didn't have a shot, but one seemed to be limping (I had heard some shooting from the direction they came from not long before). They went over a hill and down into a ravine. Since one seemed to be injured, I decided to get down from the stand and try to sneak up and peer down into the ravine to maybe finish it off. As I got to the top of the hill, crouching, I saw a deer about 200 yards away on the opposite hill. As I kept on walking, I spooked up a deer down at the bottom of the ravine. It appeared to be a large doe, and ran to the opposite hill, about 125 - 150 yards away. It presented with a broadside shot, so I decided to take it.

The shot felt good, but seeing the deer's reaction, I knew right away that I had hit it too far back. It kind of hunched up, and slowly walked 20 - 30 yards up the hill and bedded down. I reloaded, and still had a nice broadside shot so I hit it again. The deer stayed right there, and I wasn't sure if I hit it or not. So I reloaded and snuck up on the deer. As I got close, I could see it was mortally wounded, but still alive, so I finished it off with a 3rd shot. Not my best day of shooting, and I'm not proud of it, but I am happy that I could take the deer and put it out of its misery pretty quickly.

It turns out that all 3 shots hit the deer. The first shot was 137 yards away-I went back with my lazer rangefinder and verified the ranges afterwards- (shooting off-hand) and hit the deer in the intestines. The second shot (also off-hand) when the deer was bedded was at 151 yards and hit the deer through the liver. The 3rd shot was almost point blank.

Honestly, I thought the deer was closer, otherwise I might have passed on an off-hand shot that long. But I have more than once hit deer off-hand at 100 yards, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. The deer was good-sized for our area, I would estimate the live weight at 110 - 120 pounds - will be some good eating.

Once again, shot placement is everything - bullet type is secondary. A magic bullet is not going to turn a gut-shot into a boom-flop. I was fortunate that I had the opportunity to follow up quickly so the deer wasn't in pain very long. I felt a bit bad about it, but I did try to do the right thing once the deed was done.

I was using a .45 Cascade Magnum lighting off the 185 grain Lehigh on top of 80 grains T7 3f. All 3 shots were pass-thrus, and I saw evidence on all shots of the petals separating and creating separate wound channels.