Not such a bad day after all (deer down w/pics)
 

Well, Monday was the season opener in Ohio. I was able to go down this morning (Tues). Weatherman was calling for horrible weather- warm & rain all day. When we go there, was barely sprinkling and even that stopped soon.

I didn't see anything right away so about 8:30am I decided to change locations and took a slow stroll to the other end of our land. Halfway there, I spooked up a deer. It was behind a lot of trees and looking through the 4 power scope I could see its body but not what part of the body. It then turned and faced me and I could see it was a doe. Facing me head on at about 60 or 70 yards, I had about a 10 inch gap between 2 trees to shoot. So I took the offhand shot.

At the shot, it turned and ran down the hill. After reloading, I couldn't find any blood where the deer was standing. I wasn't sure if I hit it or not, so I just slowly walked in the direction it went. Well, I hadn't gone far when I saw white belly hair staring at me.



Turns out it was a button buck which I kinda felt bad about, but had no way of being able to tell with a 4 power scope at 65ish yards throug the trees. After the shot the deer ran about 70 or 80 yards. The bullet hit about 3 inches to the right of where I was aiming, directly on the point of the left shoulder:



The bullet hit the point of the shoulder, blew a pretty gruesome hole (which was not seen until I skinned the deer) through the shoulder, and travelled all the way through the deer front to back lodging in the rear ham. I measured total penetration at 22 inches:



Here's another pic of the recovered bullet:



The shoulder wound was too graphic for me to post- I thought it would be a bit much. The bullet only hit 1 lung, and no other vital organs (though it did go thru the stomach and intestines unfortunately). Given that, I was surprised that it didn't run further than it did.

It is a pretty small deer, but hey, I say you take what you can get when you have limited days hunting in the field.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I saw about 14 turkeys and 1 more doe later in the afternoon. I was however treated to a very nice view and beautiful sunset sitting out in the open before dark:










I had a blast today- got to hunt with my dad, and as his health gets worse, who knows how many more times we'll be able to do this. Better news, we're heading out again tomorrow morning and the weather looks good- temps in the 30's and light snow. Bring on a buck!

Nice shot!

Good meat, and a great shot ancient odoriferous mongrel. Congratulations.

What bullet/load were you using?

Nice work...gotta love them tender morsels! :)

congratulations on the deer. That bullet really did a job.

Good shot and congrats!

Well done. You can't beat the little ones for tender steaks. You just have to shoot more of them to fill the freezer.

Congrats and good shooting.

Congrats on the doe and the good shot.

What make and model is that rifle ?

I'm of the same mentality you are when it comes to taking what you can when you have limited days to hunt.

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of bullet was it? I may have missed it somewhere in the post, I'm not sure.

Except for the deer ;)

Congrats and nice shot.

Nice job! Should be very good meat there.

Congrats looks tasty

Awww ain't she cute. Some real good eating there friend. My hunting buddy has been out from morning to night since monday and hasnt seen nary a tail. And ony 4 other hunters.

Congrats on the eater. The lil' ones taste better anyway's.

HA

Cripes! You killed Babi, and now you're going to eat her?

That big boobed blonde last night was no boy. :p

Muley, thats cuz it had a nip-n tuck

Thanks for the replies everyone! The load was:

200 grain Shockwave
MMP tan .45/.40 sabot
80 grains T7 FFFG
T7 primer

The rifle is a New Frontier Cascade Magnum. It is very similar or identical to the old CVA Hunterbolt Magnum I believe. They don't make them anymore. I removed the ramrod and used Acra Glass to bed the action. I carry a range rod over my shoulder instead of having it in the rifle.

I was really bummed out because I wanted to take my new Knight Vision out for this hunt but developed a problem with it which I will post about in detail later.

Today was a nice day, saw some deer but none came home with me this time. My buddy saw 3 bucks including a huge 10 pointer, but he had already used his buck tag so he was SOL :).