HuntingNet.com Forums - One More For The Freezer

I harvested this guy this morning. He's a button buck. I got in my tree stand this morning and was all settled in at about 6:15 am. I was doing my usual as far as grunting every 15 minutes or so when at about 7:20 am this guy comes running down the trail to my right. The trail runs perpendicular to where I was and about 5 yards from my tree takes a sharp right turn and heads up the hill away from the creek. He follows the turn in the trail and still in a good gallop starts heading away from me so I raised my rifle, found him quickly in the scope and squeezed off a shot that at that time looked to be a sharp quartering away shot. It's been more than a dozen years since I have taken a running shot at a deer but this one was only about a 20 yard shot and I didn't think I could miss. After the shot the deer hopped off the trail into the woods and slowed to a walk. I watched him continue up the hill about 50 yards and disappear. I wasn't totally confidant I hit him but I did feel good about the shot so I stayed in the tree just in case another doe came by. We can harvest 10 does here during the firearms season. I sat in the tree stand for 2 hours and at 9:20 am I climbed down to see if I could find any blood. It had snowed here Tuesday so I thought if I had hit him It would be an easy tracking job. As I walked up the trail to the area I believed I had taken the shot I saw no blood. I was very surprised. I walked back and forth and still I saw no blood trail. So I decided to head up the trail and go into the woods to check the area where I last saw the deer. Yep, there he was. And there was a very good blood trail. I couldn't understand why I didn't see any blood from the trail so I followed the blood trail back to where it started and found that the blood didn't start to hit the ground until abut 5 yards into the woods.
Firearm: .54 caliber Traditions Deerhunter (caplock)
Powder: 80 grains 3f Goex
Bullet: 240 grain .45 caliber Hornady XTp
Sabot: Red .54/.45 MMP